Teaching a child to read off your phone is rubbish!

[eeliie]

My ds has to read daily and today we gave it a go. We sat together with my phone in my hand and opened up the ebook.

Ds started enthusiastically, then my phone zoomed in and wouldn't zoom back out until I turned it on and off.
We loaded it back up read a few pages then the same thing happened.

Poor ds sat staring at my small screen trying to read the words all the while a bright light was glaring back at him.

Yes I know my phone is crap,
I know we could read a proper book but the teacher specifically wants them to read this book,
I know it's making the best of a bad situation,

But it's still rubbish!

DS has hundreds of books. However they have always been kept in his bedroom. And I would have expected him to take his my favourite digger book to nursery. In fact I would have encouraged that, because I care if hard-backed Julia Donaldson books vanish. Less so ones from The Works bargain bin.

Grown-up books are kept in my library. That's not the room I would take a teacher to either.

OP: ask the school for a few reading books. Ours puts a few on a trolley in the porch for parents to pick up each day, with a quarantine box for returns. And our library is shut to walk-up entry, bit you can ring or use their app to order books for collection.

@AnnaMagdalena

OP, I can't believe any school is suggesting that a child reads from a phone. That is absolutely rubbish. Reading is supposed to be pleasurable.

Whereabouts are you? If you give a general idea, other MNers might be able to give you some books at the relevant level (I certainly could if you were near me) - though I would understand if you'd rather not say.

My dd school will mot give out reading books and asked us to use Oxford owl for reading.

How many people have real books in their hone? How many people read real books with their kids? Our local library has been closed not for 10 months. We're stuck with the books we got out last March.

Um...several hundred over here. Is this for real?

Bookstart as an organisation was founded because a significant minority of children have no books at home, and they wanted to make sure that every child in the UK had at least these. I think you get six in total?

@BertieBotts

Bookstart as an organisation was founded because a significant minority of children have no books at home, and they wanted to make sure that every child in the UK had at least these. I think you get six in total?

One of the "books" can be flash cards with a word or two words describing the picture above them.

Anyway they are actually very good books and have brought some of the titles to give to other children as presents.

Most people are not going to have the early stages of books at home. Charlie and Lola kicks in about stage 7. You may have one or two but not enough.

There are lots of skills in reading. You can do them in different ways. He can predict and talk about stories, characters etc from books you read/share with him. You can do decoding from matching words and pictures.

At least you did not discover your three year old could sound out from Mumsnet. C*NT still works phonetically. Mumsnet became an after bedtime activity. Password protected after one of my little dears posted a thread: 123456789

Do the school know you don't have a tablet or laptop? Lots is being done at our school to provide them for children who don't have one.

But the Oxford Learning Tree books. (Biff and Chip etc.
We bought them when DC were little and the school would only allow him him one a week.

The fact that most households have books is not the point. Most people do not have a full set of stage by stage decodable readers, which are what kids are supposed to use when they are learning to read.

OP, are you on any local Facebook groups etc? If you put the word out, you may find someone willing to lend you sets of decodable readers (Oxford Reading Tree etc.) or sell them very cheaply.

You could ask the school for a laptop. Or if you can, just bite the bullet and invest in one. DS will need one at some point for his studies anyway