Reception reading too easy

[Cutie18327]

I have a 4 year old daughter, she is August born and I wanted her entering reception confident (we have had slight behaviour issues in preschool while she caught up socially and emotionally with age) so I taught her to read before she started school. I am a teacher (secondary) so I have greatly enjoyed this process. My daughter has always been bright for her age, not exceptionally so, but enough that strangers will always remark how eloquent she is for her age/how good her memory is etc. and obviously I do want to nuture that.

Her reception teacher alluded that she was top of the class for reading at the moment, I did tell her that we were blending diagraphs and trigraphs at home but she has come home two weeks in a row with books that have 'Dig' or 'sat' on one page. She has been able to read those for a year now, and at home will read more complex sentences.

The issue I have is that 1. I don't want to come across as the pushy parent and 2. The teacher did already say it is supposed to be easy to encourage practice. I am following a totally separate reading program at home so I am happy to continue with this and nuture her growth in other ways but equally I do want her to be stretched and challenged at school as she is very capable.

How would you approach this?

Phonics schemes tend to be pretty prescriptive so she will read the scheme books along with her group/class.

Just keep reading for pleasure at home, get books out of the library etc.

How do you respond to a parent at your place of employment who informs you that you aren't adequately stretching or challenging their Y7 child who is working at KS5 level when at home (they're a university lecturer) and doesn't like them having to follow the Y7 curriculum for a subject that's entirely new to the mixed ability cohort?

Well funnily enough I do get students like this as I teach a specialist subject and I normally differentiate by task and give them a completely different task to complete during the lesson.

If just let the teacher teach the thing that they are qualified and experienced in and trust that they are doing whatever they are doing for good reason.
and if continue to read different books as you are with her at home.

you’re a teacher - how do you respond if parents tell you they’re not assessing/teaching their child correctly?

im a pe teacher who specialises in swimming. Everything I do is for good reason. So the equivalent would be a parent telling me that Bob should be in stage 3 because he can swim 5m. Except I can see that Bob doesn’t exhale under water so there is no value pushing him through before he’s learnt this fundamental. I can tell the parent that should they ask, but better still is if they trust me to do my job. Maybe the teacher has her own equivalent of that?

I’d, not if.

I think it’s difficult at Reception level to stretch them too much, plus I firmly believe that Reception should be mainly about play and developing social skills. I’ve found that now my very capable summer born is in Year 2 that they’re getting more differentiated work, particularly in English and Maths. But it’s always going to be somewhat limited especially given the ratios in state schools. I generally try not to do any formal learning at home with DS, not least so I don’t confuse him or end up with him getting bored in lessons, but try to focus on other ‘enrichment’ (what a terrible word) activities to give him a good appreciation of music, art, history etc.

Usually phonics is taught as a class in reception, and then in groups for reading books. Your dd is ahead because you taught her early, so now she’s repeating what you already taught her. The teacher won’t be able to do a separate lesson for your daughter.

I vividly remember the reception teacher for my girls telling us right at the beginning of term specifically not to teach the things that they teach at school, that that was their job. We were to make sure they could do their buttons up, use a knife and fork, aim in to the toilet etc etc but to leave the reading to them

Mine could read at three. We just ignored the school reading books. Don't think we took them out of the bag. We read our own books at home.

I'd continue what I was doing at home with her and let school get on with what it's doing at school. In other words, I would do nothing. Presumably, your daughter is choosing the books she brings home. My DD, also a strong reader, continued picking library books that were 'too young' for her as well as those that were 'too old' until she was about seven. Not 9nce did I intervene. What matters is that alongside the 'technical' aspects of reading, your DD is developing the habit of reading.

Not sure why you are 'following a reading programme' at home. Just enjoy reading for fun together at home, and make sure she has plenty of books to read for pleasure.

And, yes, lots of children in Reception are faced with tasks that are much simpler than they are able to accomplish. Especially in relation to reading. I was a bit like you in that I wanted the teacher to know how much too simple the school books were. But even at the time I was aware of the danger that that was more for my benefit than for my sons'. It is natural to be super-impressed and proud of your child's abilities but it is also good to take a back seat a bit and allow the teacher to do her thing.

The teacher will want to progress her to more interesting books, but she will likely want to do it based on her own observations, so there will be a lag.

There will be other aspects of school life that your daughter finds more challenging - perhaps the social sides since she is very young in the year. It is fine for her to do undemanding stuff too.

DD didn’t attend reception (overseas) and arrived at school in the uk at key stage 2 level approx for academics (social not so much) and her class teacher was really good at providing suitable materials but it was a mixed age class to start with (r-2) small school

DD was fluent in reception, I think she was reading level 10/11 on the oxford scheme by the end, also taught at home. Tbh her teacher just gave her the correct books. I would say they encouraged a focus on comprehension (which was actually fine) and writing to try to align her skills. If I’m being completely honest though I think those came with time anyway.

If it were me I would just say to the teacher that the reading material is a bit too easy and we should think about moving her up a bit. I don’t think thats pushy at all, theres no point her using books that aren’t going to be challenging or interesting for her. I think we were lucky that DD had some really enthusiastic teachers.

Reading is so much more than just identifying and saying words. Talk to her about the book. Develop inference skills. Why do you think he’s sitting? What do you think he’s digging for? How do you think he feels about sitting there? What is he thinking whilst he digs? Etc.

My 9 year old can read most things. Whether she understands them is another matter …

Honestly, I would just ignore the school reading book and keep going with your own thing. That’s what I’m planning on doing with my child, he is still at nursery but reading Year 2 books easily.

The school can’t cater for everyone. Accept that she isn’t going to learn reading there, but is hopefully enjoying herself and having a nice time with her friends?

I doubt OP is doing hours of reading, at that age we did ten minutes a day (5 days a week, we try to keep weekends solely for r&r). Because mine read early she also read independently for pleasure from around 4 onwards, she also enjoys doing activity books etc. Theres a lot of independence and confidence that comes with being able to read. I was an early reader and I read voraciously, it’s one thing that my mum did for me that really gave me immense pleasure and thats why I gave it to my DD. It was never about what school said. She was happily telling me that Cato the elder suggested children be bathed in the urine of cabbage eaters for their health the other day and giggling madly away. Thats the reason I taught mine to read. I’m planning to get her a book on mythology for xmas. She’ll love it, big foot, the lochness monster, all that, she doesn’t need me to read it for her.

You’ve used the word ‘alluded’ incorrectly. It’s not ‘diagraph’, it’s ’digraph’. You can’t spell ‘nurture’. Just leave the child to read her own books at home and let her enjoy reception class.

My daughter was the same. I pushed and pushed for harder books and was told not to teach her at home because she was so far ahead 🤯. As soon as she started year 1 she had an assessment and was put up several groups and started to read with the year 2 phonics group. 6 weeks later she was put in the year 3 reading comprehension group. I think that they just didn't have the capacity to accommodate her learning with the other needs levels in the group.

Im a Reception teacher and give the children books which are at their level. Books which they can decode easily, but which also have a slight element of challenge and which they can understand. I really do not know why any teacher would knowingly give a child a book that is too easy for them. The 'to encourage reading' reason makes no sense at all, as children like a small element of challenge and like to see their own progress. I think it's fine to say, 'Child seems to be finding these quite easy; could we try the next level soon?'

Whats the point of this?

They don’t need to be pushed far ahead in reception in class. They’ll want them all to do the phonics as some children will have some reading ability but may not have the phonics skills. Just enjoy whatever books you like reading with her at home and the school work will sort itself over the years, it’s likely the other children will catch up as they all pick up the reading and will be more equal.

This.

Your punctuation is super shonky, too.

I think you will come across as the pushy parent, and I think offering a different 'reading programme' at home is liable to confuse your child, especially if your own written literacy level is reflective of the content.

Op wants to know whether she should ask her child's teacher for more challenging books for her daughter, not whether she should get a job as an editor. She won't come across as pushy, if the child is indeed blending digraphs and trigraphs, as she said. If the child is able to do this, she should have more challenging books which contain these.

But it is relevant.

The OP doesn't appear to have the skills to teach literacy to young children. She obviously feels it's relevant to explain that she's a teacher. I understood her to be suggesting that this means she thinks she's qualified to teach early literacy. And I (and another poster) were pointing out that it might not be quite as simple as all that.

FWIW, I've taught English at a decently high level, but I would never assume I am as qualified as a Reception teacher to teach literacy. There will be so many things I've missed, or forgotten, or that I'm just not very good at doing myself.

I read the OP as implying that she is obviously at least as good as the Reception teacher, and actually, I think this is quite rude. I would err on the side of trusting the teacher to know what she's doing, at least this early in the school year.

And just to add to my last post: I know someone who teaches Reception and who is extremely patient, and I know from her that it's not uncommon for parents to believe their child has mastered decoding complicated words and sentences when, in fact, the child has either memorised their favourite books, or has learned a big vocabulary by 'look and say'. Some of these children are fine, but others start to struggle when they move on from books they can read from memory. It could just be that the teacher wants to be sure this child is secure on the basics.