I have been told to stop reading at home with my 5 year old!

[manicmama]

I can't believe it. My 5 year old, who is in Reception, is currently learning how to read. He loves reading and a couple of months ago started to nag me for extra words to read. I spoke to his teacher and was told that she could not give him more words until it was "time" to do so.

Things then seemed to improve a bit but this has not lasted. My DS was getting so frustrated that I bought him the same books he does at school only a bit more advanced. He reads them at home with me (his choice, not mine). I have today been told by the teacher to stop reading these books with him because he will just learn to "memorise" them rather than read them !?

I am really angry about this. I am not pushing my DS - he is just keen and I think it should be encouraged.

Has anyone else had similar experiences?

our school uses a huge mix of books in the reading scheme - quite good I think

Star, jelly and bean (i love these they are so weird), chip and biff seemed to die a death after year one thank god, and loads of others

To be utterly fair to the OP, for all we know the teacher might have banned all reading as the 'work of satan', but that isn't what is said in the first post

I would be utterly astonished if a teacher told a parent to stop reading totaly to their child. If that were true then the teacher would be barking bad. it doesn't seem yto be the case here. But people are quite happy to see the teacher as the baddie, deliberatly blocking learning at home.

I'm never met a primary teacher like that in my life!

We do masses of different schemes with ds, bless him, in part because it takes him ages to get to grips with new words.

That said, he is making (for him) very rapid progress atm. In part because his teacher is letting him read lots of fact based books , which he seems to prefer

My ds memorised his reception books in no time at all. He would 'read' them to me once, took about a minute, and then we'd send them back.

WHen I brought this up with his teacher, she said that was fine, she was trying to teach them how to read aloud with confidence and good inference. Once he had all the phonics sorted, then he went on to more challenging and interesting books. Meanwhile she said keep on helping to read whatever books he was interested in trying at home, and more importantly, keep reading to him. That way he gets the access to challenging texts, read properly, and not with that dreadful monotone that some children acquire when learning to read. It worked pretty well I think. A year on he is a very confident reader, and he doesn't read in a monotone.

I agree, get some different books. And it doesn't need to be a series. Just whatever he fancies.

Sorry, I saw red a bit. I do totally agree that there are better books to read with your ds than the school reading scheme. It doesn't really matter if they fit with the scheme or not - reading is reading and ds will learn with a combination of look and say and phonic building.

Re my "disgrace to profession" comment - sorry, that was me seeing red. But I am sick to the back teeth of my children (and ds2 in particular) being held back by teachers too lazy or unimaginative or untalented (insert whichever word you think appropriate) to provide them with challenges and to recognise that some children exceed the norms. I know an awful lot of teachers both professionally and as a parent, and I am sory to say, some definitely do not meet the standards our children deserve.

This is quite a long post now but I would be grateful if anyone could recommend a reading scheme to compliment school reading. DD primary school uses oxford learning tree and I have the read at home series but would like to get her something completely different after reading some of your comments.

long thread not post!!!

School books are patronising rubbish if you have an advanced reader. We had the same thing - the teacher at first found it hard to believe that a 5-year-old was already on "Gold" level or whatever it was called. I'd agree with those who say read books for fun at home. Maybe things will change when he gets into Y1.

can you get to the library McDreamy? that way the kids can pick books that interest them. Ds (in reception) still chooses non-fiction stuff from the library (so books on football, space etc.) where he can't read all the words but if I read it to him, he'll pick out words he knows. Dd (in yr2) will pick proper novels now but it's been nice watching their reading develop and observing which books they've gone for.

The ones I've seen in the library which look quite good are the Blue Bananas early reader books - they have some nice stories.

Good idea thanks fox. Would still be interested to hear of any other reading schemes though.

look on thebookpeople.co.uk

I like Red Nose Readers

but if you put 'readers' in the search term lots of schemes come up

MartianBishop - can I just say that you always manage to put across so succinctly the point I want to make when I read many of these education posts? Thank you for talking so much sense.

I would also say that going to a library and picking out a book that interest him would be a huge benefit to mm's ds. To see all the different books on offer, and to be able to pick and choose what he wants would be fun, and would probably help him to develop a life long love of books and reading. Far better than following a reading scheme.

It doesn't even matter if he can't read all the words, you can read some, and pick out the word he can recognise. That way he will be able to access far more interesting stuff than he would on his own.

Some wise person on MN once described early reading as 'barking at text', there is so much more to learning to read than simply decoding the text.

too true martianbishop.
Some people have children who enjoy READING, and school textbooks teach LEARNING TO READ, which is a different thing. Get down to that library, manic!

Oh dear, I seem to have set something off here. I was letting off steam yesterday, hence the nature of the title - so apologies if it is misleading

I did speak to the teacher today and she said I could read other books with my DS.

(I do go to the library fairly regularly with my DS and let him pick books he likes but he only chooses ones to discuss eg about dinosaurs. That is fine by me. I also read books TO him which he enjoys.)

Anyway, I went to the library with my DS today and took out a whole load of reading scheme books from the library. I tried reading one with him this evening and he finished it but was not very impressed. He only seems to interested in the Ruth Miskin books he does at school. I will see what happens with a different book tomorrow night.

I am so glad they dont use any "scheme" at all at DSs school. Just books appropriate to their level. In fact, even that's not right, it's just books they've chosen for themselves from the class library.

Anyway, I'd direct your DS towards the fun books in the library and ditch any scheme books at all. IMO the most important thing by far is not to teach them to read but to love reading.