Learning in reception - is she too pushy or am I too relaxed?

[emkana]

Dd1 is coming to the end of her first term in reception. Part of what she's done is that she's been given an envelope with words in it which she has to learn as sight words. Initially she got given new ones quite regularly, but now it's dried up a bit, not sure why really. Dd1 knows the words well. Her friend's mother is getting into quite a frenzy about these words - she found out that another girl already has lots more words than our dd's, and she's spoken to the teacher to demand that her dd will be tested on the words so far and then given new words asap. I'm not really that bothered, I just figured with christmas and all that the focus was probably somewhere else atm?
Also this other mum is getting worked up about how often her daughter gets new reading books and what level they are compared to other children etc. Again I'm quite relaxed about it, but maybe I shouldn't be? Is it really important to be behind this sort of thing, because otherwise your child will not make the necessary progress?

She's too pushy.

she's too pushy

She's quite clearly bonkers

I agree - too pushy - at DS1's school they get 'bookmarks' with 5 words on each one (for their sight words). He's just come home with his 5th one today - considering there's 45 words they're 'expected' to know by the END of reception year - I'm more than happy with this rate - as it means by Christmas he'll already have 25 "under his belt" so to speak.

BTW - slightly off topic - did you know that in Wilkinsons you can buy little sets of Fridge Magnets with all of the keywords for Reception (and Year 1 I believe too). They're about £3.50 (IIRC) and great for making sentences for them to practice their words.

she's too pushy, at that age you cannot copmpare to other children. There could be a whole year between them!

She shouldn't be comparing her dd with others. The teacher will be looking for progress against herself (if you see what I mean), rather than progress compared with others.

Way too pushy. dd's tin of words (about half a dozen at a time) has been changed about 3 times the whole term and I'm not fretting that she is "behind" . You can't really force the pace at this age and she is the youngest in the year. Let them enjoy all the festive distractions and refocus a bit in January.

My DS's are in year 2, and I've always been pretty relaxed about what level they are at compared to other children.
We read their reading books prpberbly 3 times a week,do any homework and practice any words, but I don't force them if they really don't want to do it.
Sometimes,if we've had a particularly action packed week I've let it slide and I didn't do as much when they were in reception, as I always felt they were very young to be regemented into homework sessions.
I think a more relaxed attitude pays off as my DS's are usually very keen to do whatever school work there is to be done, and have a very good level of reading.
I think this Mum is too pushy, and may find her child loses interest in school work, because it's more of a chore.

Sounds pushy but I suppose I can imagine why she feels she wants to keep her dd 'up there' at the front of the class - I think that's kind of natural - ALTHOUGH, I wouldn't be demanding the teacher tested and added new words as she has done.

At ds1's school they don't even do that 'learn these words by sight' thing as they do phonics. In fact, it's funny because while looking for something else in my files I found a list of those reception words to learn I saved from a previous MN thread. I reckon ds1 could work almost all of them out from knowing all the sounds - I'm going to give him a wee go of them tomorrow. Not in a pushy way you understand, just out of interest

well, ds hasn't got any words. And the few books he has gotten for reading he hasn't really managed to read, having said so, I think they are useless (ORT) and have ordered the Ruth Miskin books....
Not really bothered whether he learns anything at all in reception as long as he enjoys it. But then I went to school abroad where children where 6/7 y before they started learning the alphabet....

She;s too pushy. The children have got another 12 years of school to perfect their spelling

madness - Ruth Miskin books are great - ds1 has read all of level A ('first' and 'fun') already - they really build their confidence! Quite a jump to level B I think although ds1 is just about managing.

In defence of this mother though, it sounds like the system hadn't been explained to any of you and this is happening at my school too. I feel if teachers could give a general idea of what their system is, it helps parents to feel they have some idea of what's going on.

pushy pushy pushy - particularly because the focus seems to be comparison with other children.

Agree Mog - I've got snippets about how they are in groups already, ds1 is in blue group and then I hear so and so is on the blue/yellow/purple books or they've read book 3, 4, 5 or 6 but I have NO idea what any of this means!!! Perhaps we aren't meant to for this very reason - people get overly worried and overly competitive at a stage where the main aim is probably to settle the children into school life rather than coaching them towards the 11+!! Plus, there will be quite a range of ability at this age I would have thought, that will probably narrow as times goes on. There is a girl in ds's class who is very good at reading - well she was 5 at the start of Sept and that's really quite different to those boys that were 4 in the 2nd half of August (of which there are a few) - unfair to compare them at this stage I think.