To have told DD not to read out loud in class if she doesn’t want to?

[AberforthDumbledoresGoat]

DD has a lisp. It has greatly improved as she’s gotten older but it is still very noticeable and she’s quite young still (primary). She struggles with ‘th’ and ‘f’ and can be quite self conscious about it, particularly around her classmates.

Her teacher has started having the class read out loud whichever book they are reading that week. Each child speaks until she says ‘stop.’

Recently DD was incredibly upset when I met her at the gates (she saw me and burst into tears and was quite hysterical). Her classmates had laughed at her in class and the teacher had ignored it other than to ask for quiet and the bullying had continued all day. I gently raised it with the school and asked that she not be asked to speak as, in my eyes, embarrassing her in front of 20 other children is not going to help her lisp and I just don’t think you do that to a young child. The teacher said no.

So, I told DD she was to refuse to read out loud if she doesn’t want to. She did exactly that - cue exasperated teacher at the gates asking to speak to me. The teacher absolutely refused to understand that embarrassing DD in front of her classmates was counterproductive and she ended up saying it was causing her problems as other children were now refusing to read out loud.

I did lose my temper slightly and pointed out if she had taken action, and addressed the classmates laughing at DD in class over her lisp, that this wouldn’t have been an issue. I also said I didn’t care if other children were disrupting the class by refusing to read.

WIBU to have told her to refuse to read given how upset she was?

I think you addressed the wrong thing here. The problem was that the teacher didn't firmly shut down any teasing or bullying. All they needed to have was a blanket, "we don't comment on anyone else's reading" policy. And to come down hard on any kids who broke this.

As for whether your DD should read aloud - this is a tricky and nuanced situation. I do think that there are some children for whom reading aloud in front of a class, or other activities, are so difficult or stressful that doing them is of no value and can even be counterproductive. I also think that a child simply strongly disliking or struggling to do an activity does not always rise to this bar. Ultimately, your DDs speech therapist is probably the person to make the call which way it falls for her, but I don't know that refusing to read without putting in a plan of other activities to build confidence speaking in front of others is going to help her build self esteem here.

She won’t have her confidence absolutely eviscerated by her classmates laughing at her.

My mum is 79 and still hates reading aloud, even to her grandchildren because of the torture she felt at school when being forced to do it.

There is absolutely no reason for very small children to be forced to read aloud to the class. OP’s DD will not be the only child struggling with it. If you want to encourage kids to do it, you take them 1:1 or in small groups. There will be kids who love it, let them do it. I used to get really annoyed that I was rarely picked to do it, but the kids who struggled were picked on all the time. Nobody got anything out of that situation.

This resonates with me. I never had a lisp or a stammer or anything like that, but when I was in, I think year 5 the teacher used to regularly make us read out loud from the history textbook. I used to get really self-conscious and fall over my words. The teacher mocked me for it in front of the whole class and everybody laughed. I’m 42 now and I’ve never forgotten it, it made me feel about 2 inches high.

Reading aloud in class is usually completely non-productive IME.
The children who do it willingly are very few and far between.

I don't know why any teacher would use' reading aloud' now. Most kids hate it.
Many are not following the story at all, but counting down to their turn to read.

There are ways to 'read aloud' which are different to this- for example, play reading. The confident child gets a big part, the less confident child just a word or two.

Teachers can also ask who will volunteer to read- I used to do that.
For a less confident child, I might talk to them at the end of a lesson and ask if they would like to join in, with a very small amount of reading.

You can't 'force' confidence on a child and trying to is counter productive.

Reading out loud is a great weay to read a book in class. Having your daughter laughed at is terrible.

I'm not sure it is. The struggling/slower readers will be visibly struggling and feeling embarrassed or ashamed.
The quicker readers will be frustrated and several pages ahead while simultaneously trying to keep track of where the class is up to for when it is time to read out loud.

It's a disjointed experience at best and an experience that is more likely to turn kids off reading, rather than on.....

But this brings me to a memory in early primary of how it was done well. We had a book corner that was well stocked for lots of different abilities - proper books though even if it was just one line per page. No reading scheme books. Children could choose to be in that corner and read to whoever else was there, including the teacher who has a wonderful way of just disappearing among the kids and not being teachery. There was a lot of take-up and it built a lot of confidence.

Christ what an awful comment. I hope you’re not a teacher !! It sounds as though the child could be considered disabled under the Equality Act and as such she would have protected characteristics legally requiring the school to make reasonable adjustment. This could take the form of one to one reading aloud instead of in front of the whole class, or in smaller groups and with consideration for anything that would likely place stress and aggravate the situation. And if the speech impediment does qualify under the Act, then failure to provide reasonable adjustment is illegal, as is the failure to shut down bullying directly attributable to disability. That’s discrimination.

You were, because when your child said no, she was put in an even more difficult situation. Her teacher was angry with her, and those who were unkind will have something else to mock her for (children at primary school simply do not say 'no' to a teacher so you made her stand out as different, even more). Her confidence will have been dented further.

I disagree.

There was no easy situation here.

If the only options available to the child are to accept being repeatedly humiliated in class, or to say, "no, I am not going to do this" and be told off, the second option is clearly better.

It's never to early to teach kids that it's OK to say "no" to being humiliated.

If that causes problems for the teacher, good. Hopefully next time she'll think twice before refusing to engage with a parent's perfectly reasonable concerns.

I disagree. My daughter is disabled. We talked to the school about the things we knew were a problem for her and I told my daughter if anyone asked her or told her to do stuff she knew was a problem, to refuse and tell the school to phone me if they had an issue with it. There were a couple of times she got upset about it because nobody listened to her, but she just kept repeating, “my mum said to phone her if this happened” and they did, and they were told. Neither her nor I gave a toss what the other kids thought.

@AberforthDumbledoresGoat there are two issues here. One is that the teacher isn’t addressing bullying in class, and two is that she isn’t taking on board your reasonable request. Both of those need to be escalated to the head teacher.

If she is under SLT, speak with them and have them write a letter to the teacher saying she must not be asked to read aloud in class.

Whereas if I were that teacher I would speak to the child and try to understand why she doesn’t want to read aloud in front of a room full of peers who laughed at her!
OP, the teacher is in the wrong - but please don’t put your DD in the position of challenging her. If you need to, escalate it further with the Head.

The teacher is absolutely wrong here and shouldn’t be making DD read out loud.

However it is also completely unfair to tell a primary age child to refuse to do something a teacher is asking. That’s putting DD in an impossible position and makes the whole thing worse. The teacher cannot back down in that position without losing authority with the rest of the class.

After you’d had your first chat with the teacher and she refused to agree with you, your next step should have been to email the head (and whoever else, SENCO etc) cc the teacher, and tell DD you are working on a solution. Not tell DD to disobey.

Sorry I know it’s easy with hindsight.

Reading aloud was something I did as a pupil when I was 12.
That's a long time ago!
I hated it.

I don't know why a teacher would do this now. It doesn't encourage a love of reading, and maybe the opposite.

When I was teaching GCSE and A level Shakespeare I asked for volunteers to read out , so even 16-18 year olds don't always enjoy it.

To be honest I’m torn between the unassailable logic of your post, and wanting to know why on earth a teacher was unable or unwilling to shut down the bullying immediately it started. I can kind of see why OP advised DD to refuse to read because the maternal instinct is to stop the source of the distress, but I agree it’s not the best solution.

Sadly there is a speaking assessment in English GCSE exams, most of which involve a 5 minute presentation and then questions. It is not possible just to opt out.

Agree. And in this case the reason is crystal clear - the speech impediment and the teachers failure to shut down the merciless teasing and subsequent bullying. The teacher doubling down doesn’t help but rather than telling DD to refuse to read, this needs to be escalated as soon as possible and I’m wondering if it would be better to keep the child home until it’s sorted - it would underline the effect it’s had on DD.

Given that there’s a reading out loud requirement in GCSE English I think this would put her at a disadvantage. If the speech impediment qualifies as a disability under the Equality Act 2010 (which from what OP has said, it appears it would) then there is an opportunity for OP to address it from the point of view of a disability for which the school is legally required to make reasonable adjustment. This would give OP the weight of the law behind her so that the school would have to find a solution which means DD doesn’t miss out and isn’t disadvantaged due to the speech impediment, but receives the support she needs to help overcome the difficulties it presents. The school would also be forced to address the issue of bullying because it’s direct discrimination being disability related. They should be doing this anyway but it sounds like this teacher needs a push.

I am sorry if I have missed the relevant information but I’ve read all of OP’s updates and I can’t see any specific information about her year group. I’m a specialist reading teacher and it would be helpful to know her year group to understand why the teacher has ignored the request and to suggest adaptations.

Not necessarily relevant but out of interest - 21 children is a small class. Is it an independent school?

It sounds as though the school are not attaching much importance to the speech impediment, but if it’s posing a problem in daily life - which sounds like the case - it would likely qualify as a disability under the Equality Act 2010, and if so, reasonable adjustment would then have to be provided to avoid DD falling behind as a result of that disability.

setting aside oral literacy, some people on this thread seem to struggle with literacy full stop!

Exactly my point really. One can coach a child to confront or retreat.

If you're truly comfortable with your choice then you don't need internet strangers to reinforce your view.

You were right. Hope that helps.

I’m so glad you are advocating for your child. My English teacher used to enjoy humiliating us by forcing us to read aloud. She forced me and another boy to do it. It wasnt to help us, just through hatred. We both ended up hating reading and her lessons. We’re both successful adults, he is an architect. We both still struggle having to read aloud.

You sound difficult. You're going to end up with one of these teenagers whose scared to speak on the phone.

She has a lisp, so what, she needs to read aloud as part of the class.

Bullying is very different to a bit of teasing. Teach her some resilience. You'll make her stand out more and be picked on more if her lisp is getting her special treatment.

Starting a sentence without a capital letter is a great way to make the point 😆

That's an awful thing to say

No, no and no again. Can’t be arsed explaining why not. It should be obvious.