Comment from Reception child's teacher

[secondtimelucky87]

My child started Reception in September. The school's policy is that we read their phonics books every day. Absolutely fine with that - I have been teaching English for 13 years and need no convincing. We are expected to write in the reading record to say we have read the books. I have done so every single day apart from last night because (despite doing the reading as always), I was pretty exhausted after a long day's work and all the various things that need to be done before bedtime. We have a WhatsApp group for my child's class to ask questions/receive reminders for the week. Today however, I received a direct message telling me off for not reading/recording we had done the reading. AIBU to have been slightly taken aback by this? No issue with the teacher herself - I am sure she's merely carrying out school policy but surely it's a bit much after 1 missed comment? I could understand if we'd skipped a whole week!

The context is that organisation has been fairly chaotic. Her reading books aren't changed for weeks at a time. My child is very bright, reading her books fluently and clearly bored of reading the same 2 phonics books daily but we do so anyway. Similarly, they are given quite time-consuming homework but at most, all we've ever received by way of acknowledgement is one tick and the last 3, not even that. Surely a little glittery sticker and a couple of words would make a 4 year old feel valued after working so hard on it when they're exhausted! Would be interested to hear from other EYFS teachers and parents with kids of this age. Thank you and please be kind as I don't really know what's normal. She's my only child so I'm new to this. I sent a polite reply clarifying I had in fact done the reading as always but just forgot to comment!

If you know you did the reading it doesn’t matter what message you got. I’d have just sent a note in explaining what happened.

My year 2 kid gets heaps of homework every night (the year 2 introductory sheet said “should take 30-45 mins a night”. LOL. This is an independent prep and I can say with confidence that pushy parents wanting to prep kids for exams at 7+ or whatever are driving it.

It is a total pain in the arse.

I hated reading records as a teacher! In class it's virtually impossible to get a minute's peace to write even "great effort!" In everyone's book and read the comments from the parents. And then there's the parents who write full essays about their child every night (not necessarily about their reading) and expect you to write an equally wordy response! Whatsapp messages are an even higher level of nonsense! Poor you!

Is this level of homework everyday?? My DD started reception in September too - we are asked to record reading in a log, but it doesn't have to be everyday, and even though we do some sort of reading every evening (outside of the school phonics books) I don't have to record it. Each week we get sent a summary of work they've done and some examples of activities we could do to support these topics. If we do them we record it in a homework book. But it's never as prescribed as what you describe here...we've done things like baking, and nature walks that we can include pictures of. I do writing practice and fine motor skill activities with my DD anyway, but it's never something that's been given as required homework. I'd be annoyed by this.

As a teacher you should know not to take these sorts of things to heart. It’s likely the teacher was writing in lots of books and just messed up.

one of my daughters primary school teachers wrote my daughter was slow at typing and needed to improve. My daughter had just finished a year of daily touch typing exercises and she could touch type faster than most adults! Teacher admitted she was copying and pasting stuff and offered to change her report.

To those saying a qualified secondary teacher wouldn’t know when they are ready to progress on a phonics scheme, I think that’s rubbish, parents are often far more aware of where their child is than teachers who get very little time with them. The phonics programmes also are simply not fit for purpose for many dc with differing learning styles - I had to build my DDs confidence back up and teach her to read myself because the phonics scheme was just confusing her.

I work in reception and would be made up if any child has only “missed” one read since starting. Most of ours read once or twice a week, some don’t record any reads at all (and I believe don’t read at all at home)

Any school that makes 4-year-olds do homework is bound to be little Hitlers about kids missing a day of reading, so I can't say I'm surprised. I don't like it though. I'd ignore. If they bring it up, say something breezy and brushing-off in tone.

Who knows then ?

Just ignore it or send her a 👍.

You do what you can do. You aren't neglecting your child's education by missing one night's reading.

If your child is bored it might be worth getting reading eggs. You can do a placement test so it put her at the right phonics level. She'll still need to do the reading but it's a more engaging way of learning.

Quite honestly, I would kick back about this, OP. One missed recording of the reading assignment and you get a dusty response while all previous completed assignment recordings went without any acknowledgement?
That's no way to encourage learning in a four year old (and her parent)
So yes, I would complain or at least raise a query, and if it makes me that parent, so be it. If it gives the teacher pause for thought before firing off a rocket next time without referencing previous good work, then that's definitely all to the good, as far as I can see.

Haha, ignore it. Who cares? You did the reading

There'll be much more of this kind of stuff now everyone and their dog is creating AI agents - it's easy for them to go through and notice a missing mark and then send an auto message for it. Stick with your own mind and know you did nothing wrong and confine it to the 'who gives an f' pile

Go to the library and borrow alternative books to read and when she gets bored read a different one. Some easier ones for fluency and an occasional harder one to stretch her.

Yes I think this is why I'm particularly confused. At the phonics meeting, the message was very much: try to read every day but don't stress if you can't. The fact that I did the reading (but forgot to put a signature in the reading record) and got a telling off seems farcical!

Remind the teacher that YOU are not her student. If you read with the child then that's all that matters. You shouldn't be beholden to filling in diaries etc.

Do they still have Biff, Chip and Kipper books.?

My mind is blown that you have a class WhatsApp group that includes the teacher. Did she instigate it? Is this now normal? I can't believe parents have access to parents like this. Or have I misunderstood?

Oh bless her, I'm sorry she had this experience. I hope she's being challenged more now! I always make it a priority to make sure those kids don't get left behind either! Yes, we always let her choose a fun book for afterwards but what she's really into is science and animals etc so of course we read her those! But more and more, we're noticing she is just reading words 'in the wild' unprompted! Her current favourite is spelling words out with the foam letters at bath time! 😊

"Hi there, was this meant for me? I have recorded reading every single day, and only missed one, due to a busy day"

Mine used to read a lot. To the point we were told we could only change books once a week as it was a lot of work swapping books. We also had a book to write in but they only looked at it once a week.

We went to the bookshop and library thereafter.

My child's in year 5 and doesn't have this level of homework !

This is a lovely idea, thank you! I love it! I'll get her some stickers myself. She'd really appreciate that. Thanks for the idea 😊

Honestly, although the teacher's message is clearly OTT, I'd add another polite message back saying 'Just in case you didn't know, DD has not had her books changed for a few weeks. It would be great if they could be changed soon as she would be more enthusiastic about reading something new'.

Primary school reading, esp for those who are competent at it and progressing well, can be a bit soul destroying at times. I used to volunteer to go and help children change books weekly. If you have any time, maybe they would be glad of a bit of help.

We also did the 'too boring/easy, read another book instead' from time to time. And in Y3 when DD was independently reading and understanding eg Roald Dahl at home I had to go in and explain that although she wanted to do the work and fulfil expectations, 'I am a school cook. I peel potatoes. I chop vegetables.' was not encouraging her love of reading. No further trouble.

Definitely ask how you can get new books. It could be that your daughter is supposed to ask to change them and that hasn’t properly been explained, or she’s been missed. Especially if she is good at the phonics they may not be checking up on her as much.

We had this, got ignored for 5 weeks! Not a single comment until I queried it!