As a parent, how would you react to this?

[eflabb]

Bit of a long story, but we have just returned from abroad and started my son in Year 1. Where we lived (don't want to say the country name because of school identifying us), primary doesn't start until 7, so my husband taught my son to read, write etc at home. He is also bi-lingual. My husband is a retired ex-teacher.

He has done extraordinarily well and is reading ORT 10 books now, with little difficulty. Comprehension is excellent. He is a real little book worm. I spoke to his UK school about this before we came over and was told by one of the teachers that she personally wouldn't countenance Reception children reading above Level 5 during the Reception year. I comforted myself with the fact that she wouldn't be teaching him, and he started school this week.

On the first day, I was called in by his teacher to a meeting with her and this other teacher. To cut a long story short they wanted to take issue with me claiming that he could read level 10 books. His reading was, quote "all over the place." There were "large gaps in his reading" and "I mean (she laughed and threw her hands up in amazement) he couldn't even understand what a title was." He had, according to this woman, been "sped through the levels" by us to a very advanced level that she claimed he could not function at. And approaching unknown words by sounding them out was apparently "not appropriate" at this level. She apparently felt "sooooooo sorry for him being tested in this way."

Her tone was very dismissive and sarcastic (but lots of smiling at the same time).

Suffice to say, she would now start him on Level 6 (note her position on children only being able to reach Level 5 during Reception, so the way I see it, she is positioning him according to her set ideas as to the levels children can achieve during a particular year).

When we got home he read his school book in about 2 minutes flat and told me how great school was going to be because he can do it all.

I've had my head in my hands over this. My husband just stared at me in disbelief when I first told him and got on the net to check out other schools (which all seem to be full now).

What do we do?

I can't think why anyone would choose to read ORT books at home. I think that reading scheme books are awful! Go to a library and choose books with the same sort of amount of text on the page that appeal to you and your child and read them instead. You won't get them all right, but if they are too tricky you can read them to your child, and if they are too simple you can whizz through them. Leave the technical teaching of reading to school, and just do the enjoyable bit.

I like ORT, I liked the early ones we got when he was starting (though I probably wouldn't have if it was all we had) and he just got a treetops one which we are both enjoying.

If some of the longer books make your DS feel abit duanted - do some shared reading too. DD is a good reader, but she can, at times, get frustrated about a longer chapter book taking too longer. So, we sometimes hare the book. I read one page, she reads the next.