school has surprised me!

[blackeyedsusan]

last week I asked for harder words to read... one (or more) groups have been given spellings!

I also asked for more challenging books as the yellow band books were a "little easy." given that we are reading easy chapter books at home they have put her up one band. I am shocked as we normally play a little game every couple of months where I say the books arer too easy and they ignore me and we carry on doing our own thing in our own happy way. once pmt has passed

ok so she could spell the words first time at home and green band is not a big leap, but i do not know whether she will cope with spelling in a test and at least the green band books are a little harder and we can get something out of it now. she has been asked to practice adding numbers in the teens as she doesn't use the number line to count on. (tends to do these things in her head) well we have practised and introduced a strategy of using number bonds of single digit numbers to check teens+ addition (ie if 2 and 4 =6 then 12+4=16 and 22+4=26 etc) doubt that will go down well! I hope she talks about her strategy at school.

I think I want to push for more, but not until she has had time to try out/prove herself for another month or so. (after all she might go to pieces under test conditions and we have a lot of work to do on handwriting) anyone fancy sitting on me and administering the duct tape for the next month?

(disclaimer, i know she is not doing some of the stuff other really bright children do at this age, though she is the top end of normal and I post mainly because i as fed up of the lack of progress ith reading in school compared to home)

ps, sorry about the lack of capitals, intermittent shift key!

Just had an interesting conversation with another mum with dd in same class. in the library. about books. she knows dd is a good reader but not how good. trying not to be one of "those" mums. she saw some of the books that dd has been trying to read and said, please don't tell me that dd is reading those books, so I didn't. she was asking whether dd wanted books from the next 2 levels. didn't like to say that she read them last year. it's just not done!

Early reading proficency is not an indicator of ability.

www.mensa.org.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=525

adoptmama- not for one minute suggesting you think I am pushy

Sorry for confusion, I meant Ds's school/teacher etc...

except in reading of course iamnotinterested.

I agree Iamnotinterested.
'Reading' is a comprehension exercise, not a decoding exercise. A five year old who can decode well will not have the life experience to understand the nuances of a book written for an 11 year old.
Too many people see reading as the ability to decode words. It isn't.

However the two are very closely linked and good decoding and semantic processing skills are both necessary for good comprehension. If you look at the studies and research, children with strong decoding skills generally have far better comprehension than children with weak decoding skills so decoding is obviously very important for comprehension.

However there is a significant minority for whom this isn't true and there has been a lot of evidence produced by research which indicates that children who have weak decoding skills but are strong sight word readers initially show better comprehension than peers with normal level decoding skills. However the longitudinal studies with these groups show that within a couple of years the stronger decoders have overtaken the others and now have better comprehension.

This is significant for those whose DCs are early readers through having strong sight word recognition alone. You may find at the moment your children are ahead of the game and appear to be advanced readers with excellent comprehension; but that may not always be the case. It is one reason why schools/teachers can appear to be reluctant to simply march through levels on the reading schemes and are going at a slower pace than your child appears to be capable of: they are trying to ensure the phonological decoding skills are also in place rather than just sight reading.

I also think its harder to gauge the decoding skills if they are a good reader as the books are made for older children iyswim and so some of what DS reads he is not going to "get" as its for kids a yr or 2 older than him. So this does rather limit what books he can try.

He does seem to be loving The Secret 7 though although some of the vocab is a little old fashioned (he asked me what duly meant and then said its a word with 2 meanings as its his old teachers name (Julie) )

dd is a little confused about what colour (bands) book she is reading at school. she came out with ... when I am reading blue books... and how many books are there in each colour... how many do i have to read before I get the next colour? there obviously has been some discussion at school. (probably with the new books going out) she did notice her books had got a little longer I have told her I do not know which band books she is on at school (true, they have their own sticker system)

we also haven't read it since it arrived on the 5th. (class toy took a lot of time) I am busy trying to get my head round the concepts in the book. it s content is a little too old for her to understand without a lot of work on it. we are currently working on one of our ort books at the same level and it is taking all flippin' week to read and discuss.

simpson - that's v funny. we get 'is that a homonym or a homophone?' and then have to point out it's neither . it reminds me of a few years ago when dd2 was listening to ds1 going on about shapes. he mentioned a cuboid and was gabbing on and asking dd2 questions. she was just wee and i said 'um, i'm not sure that x knows what a cuboid is, ds'. she was vair indignant and said 'i do. it's what daddy uses for the computer!'

cue lots of blank faces.

ooooooohhhhhhh. keyboard.

am lolling at 'julie', though.

Had a nightmare few days which resulted in DS having some glass removed from his hand in hosp on tuesday.

He was not allowed a GA as my dad is allergic to a common GA so he had tro be awake the whole time and he had no pain releif except magic cream

Think small boy being held out screaming etc

He has been quite tearful afterwards and has said to me that he does not enjoy school any more and does not like the new teacher (new classroom is too noisy etc and he does not tell off the naughty kids)

he is not allowed to do PE for a few days so when his class had PE yesterday he joined the other yr2 class for an hr and me if he could stay there all the time as he liked it so much.

He has not had a new reading book since being given the last ORT9 one and despite getting every one of his spellings right since sept (he used to get 9 a wk) he is now getting 7 much easier ones as its "policy" for them all to have the same

Some kids struggle to learn 3 a wk and I feel DS is being kept back because of this

Apparently we have a meet the teacher session soon so I will raise it all then

outof - I did at keyboard!!!!

oops sorry for typos

Trying to get DD to eat her lunch at the same time

"its "policy" for them all to have the same" bullshit. doubt ofsted would see it that way.

hope your ds is better soon simpson.

As I understood it some children who seem gifted and talented just pick skills up like reading quicker than the rest who then catch up. You can be excellent at reading but not really comprehending what it is you are reading about. My mothers a primary school teacher of 30 years and helpfully reined me in abit as I was encouraging DD to read books that she didn't really get much out of just because she could read them - the worry being you could put them off reading generally.

DD is year 1 July birthday on level 20 and was reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prairie books but didn't have the life experience to understand that they were about America in the 19th century. Hadn't occurred to me that she might be gifted and talented though its just she likes reading and writing. Surely the time to really focus on this is when they are older?

DS has just told me that his teacher has promised to (finally) go to KS2 and get him some reading books on monday.

Just had meeting with HT to talk about how we as parents want the school reports set out at the end of the year.

Was very tempted to mention some of the issues I have with DS (ie books or new spelling policy etc) but did manage to restrain myself

policy
wtf.
that reminds me of dd2 not being eligible for the regional programme because her handwriting wasn't up to scratch (because of her cp). she can type. neatly cancels out any kid with dyspraxia or any other motor difficulties, even if they spend the day working out a cure for cancer.

however, i think they'll find (with a bit of encouragement) that their policy is to differentiate appropriately for each child, not do 'one size fits all' ad infinitum.

poor ds. hope he feels better.

ds's meds are having an interesting side effect - he is gabbling non stop. the paed did say that she thought they might help him organise everything in his head a bit better so that he can get it out of his mouth (he often can't answer a question because he's running through all the different scenarios in his head and struggles to get to the 'end point' as there's so much going on) and she wondered if it might make make him more vocal. dear god. dh picked him up from cubs last night and said he didn't stop talking all the way home. normally he'd just zone out and then come up with a totally random question that was apparently unconnected to anything, but that he'd worked his way round to in his subconscious... i'm just hoping it's ordinary chatty and not some sort of manic side effect though. we'll see how it goes!

kerala, yy, comprehension and the lack of age appropriate stuff for early readers is an interesting one. easy enough to work on comprehension skills though? and there's nothing wrong with her reading liw if she enjoys it - you don't need to be questioning her about it to make sure she understnads it as long as she's having fun - she's reading for pleasure, not sitting an exam - if she doesn't get it and it's boring, she'll just put it down and go and find something else, won't she? i don't think i've ever specified what they read (just taken a few things away lol) she'll ask questions if she needs to? she'll probably re-read it in a year or two and the bits that she skim read as they didn't make sense, she'll pick up then. the kids who do have the comprehension in yr r and 1 will do fine just getting on with it. i think maturity and subject matter are more difficult tbh. liw is probably fine (dd2 has them, i haven't read them for donkeys tbh so can't remember) it's the divorce/ abuse stuff in slightly older kids books that i don't like (yes, jw, i'm looking at you and the blooming teachers that let 6yos at early teens books). dd2's teacher gave her a pioneer autobiography for christmas. can't remember who of (will go and find it...), but she loves it. she's a little older though (8). i know my girls have been v good at choosing not to read books if they don't feel they are ready for them? dd1 in particular. she'll just put it back on the shelf ans say she'll go back to it in a year or two. (well, she did at 6/7 anyway. at 12 she'll read anything lol.)

I have found some more books that may be suitable. I have just got a handful out of the library to read to check them out. I rerad 3/4 of on ein the library but thought it betterr to leave once ds was one end of a book and his friend at the other and it looked like the book was going to come off worse.

we have also been known leave a puddle. (on the new librrary floor)

Had interesting chat with HT in the meeting today and she said that yr2 do sit SATS tests iyswim although they don't tell parents/pupils when that is but if a child does worse in a test than they have done in the classroom (ie down to nerves on something they have consistently been able to do in class) then the teacher will assess them on classroom work if that makes sense....

True, Simpson. The tests are used to support the teachers' assessments.
The teacher's assessment is reported at the end of the year.

I'm not sure it's worth anyone getting worked up about homework. It may not reflect the differentiation that goes on in class.

simpson Year 2 reported level is based on continual assessment.

HT definately said that they sit a test. But that it is on teacher assessment too iyswim.

Just wondering if she means the kids who are doing level 3

No, all children working at level 2 or 3 will sit tests - it's not reserved for the "bright" ones.

As I said, the tests are used to support the teachers' assessments.
Results of tests and assessments usually match (as they should if you think about it!)

Ah thats what I thought she said, that they sit tests but that they (pupils) are not told about it till that day.

If the test result is totally different to their classroom work then its done on assessment iyswim. Although I guess most of the time its a mixture of the two.