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?

Yes, exactly. Theres no benefit to OP’s DD if her reading material is essentially pointless. DD’s teachers always provided her with just enough stretch, she sometimes spent a long time on one level to make sure she was comprehending appropriately. It was incremental and useful to her (this is school, it’s supposed to be doing something useful).

Early readers seem to give some mumsnetters the rages, I have no idea why. We don’t tell people not to teach their kids other things like football or their shapes and colours. Theres never been any confusion for DD between what she was taught at home and school, it’s all just reading.

I would say pp point about inference is really important imo. It should be done as you read along to get them thinking and engaging.

As long as none of this onerous for the child I really don’t see the problem, taking ten minutes out of your day to help them read is hardly a brutal miserable childhood. Whats the downside of being able to read?

Do you get a reading diary sent home? Just write a comment in there to say that DD is managing these books easily and can read e.g Song Birds Stage 4 at home.

Or raise it at parents' evening.

As long as she has the opportunity to read books which are suitably stretching for her, it surely doesn't matter whether these come from school or from home?

Some of the comments OP got here are really unnecessary.

The OP could technically teach Reception (in theory), as she is a qualified teacher (but in reality would need to gain a lot of experience). By telling us her job role, she was explaining that she does indeed have the pedagogical underpinning to teach, but is finding her own way to teach reading. So she is experienced at teaching, but just has never taught this before.

Being able to teach is a complete discipline separate from subject knowledge, but the two are combined when teaching (for obvious reasons). It is not necessary to have the same command of written English as a university professor to teach phonics well, just as you dont need to have a PhD to teach Science at GCSE. You just need to know enough of the subject knowledge to be able to stretch them slightly at each stage of their learning, and be able to literally teach it.

Worked in reception for years. Ofsted have pulled up schools for giving out texts containing sounds which the child has not yet been explicitly taught at school, even if they already very clearly know them. So now, many colleagues are frightened to give out books further along the phonics scheme even with very able children in case they are reprimanded. Just give your child entirely different books from the library which are appropriate for their current ability and write in their reading journal that they’ve read those instead - the teacher will completely get what you’re doing and why but they won’t tell you that for fear of being told off!!!

I am a Reception teacher with over 20 years of experience and everything you have said is true. Parents do often think that their child is more capable than they are. And what do we do? They come to me to say the books are too easy, I show them their child's most recent phonics assessment and go through the notes I made over the last term and explain why the child is at the level they are and what they need to work on. I explain things from my side, and then I do try a little more challenge and see how they get on, in case I have missed anything. Its best to just bring these things up with the teacher. 'Look, she is reading these at home. Could you try her on some more challenging books and let me know how she gets on'. No big deal, the teacher won't be offended and then the parents can work together with the teacher.

‘Leaders know that pupils must learn to read using books that contain only the phonics they have been taught.’

Taken from an Ofsted report. It doesn’t matter that you’ve technically ‘taught’ her these at home - only what they’ve been taught at school. I guarantee you her class teacher will think this is ridiculous too but can’t voice that. She will secretly clap her hands with joy when she sees you’re just giving your daughter alternative books to read - trust me

Apparently Ofsted want children reading books containing sounds they have been taught. My DS started school able to read chapter books but had to work his way slowly through the phonics scheme, following pace with what he had learnt at school.

Why aren't there any differentiated groups?

To me, it doesn't look as if the OP has the subject knowledge to teach early literacy. She doesn't understand how to use commas, I don't think. It doesn't look to me as if those errors are typos, because she's made the same kind of error repeatedly.

That matters. If you're right that the OP is talking about her teaching experience in order to show she's got the underpinning to teach, then her post contradicts that claim, doesn't it? It probably doesn't matter if she is teaching, say, maths to GCSE students (which may be the case). I doubt her maths students need her to use commas correctly. But when you're teaching tiny ones, it does matter. You need to be super accurate, because they are learning these things for the first time.

It could well be that the DD's teacher has picked up problems that the OP simply isn't noticing, because the OP isn't in the habit of being very careful about this stuff. Anyone could do that. God knows I wouldn't teach my DD to read; I'd make a terrible hash of it. All I'm saying is, if the OP wants to know what we think of the situation, then I'm afraid it's relevant that her own written literacy isn't very good.

I think this would be much better and more polite option than the OP's alternative reading programme, absolutely!

It’s reception. You carry on doing what you are doing and the school will do what they are doing.

Look, this post was a mother asking whether her child's books were too easy and if she should ask the teacher. Depending on when the OP qualified, she most likely had to pass a QTS skills test, which involved Literacy skills. I think that you picking apart her sentence construction when it's fine (not perfect, but good enough to teach a four year old for sure) is really childish and petty, and actually demonstrates your own lack of understanding of education, especially as commas aren't even taught explicity in Reception.

Fair enough. I must admit, I'm definitely on the defensive as - to me, and maybe it is just me - she comes across as if she thinks the Reception teacher is a sight less good at the job than she is. I think this is something people are far too inclined to do with Reception teachers. I am incredibly impressed by anyone who does that job. I think it's bloody hard, and deserves a lot of respect.

This. My was reading and basic maths fluent at 4. She had a reading age of 18 at 9. School was prescriptive and insisted she read every damn book in the flipping Biff, Chip, kipper and their reading books scheme. She was a free reader with them at year 4 / under negotiations with the head (wasn’t usually allowed) we did a lot at home on inference, feelings or her coming up with another story or taking about emotions.

Mine was allowed to a book shop once a month and £50 to spend on ‘her books’ and we went to the library every Saturday and took out 10 books - she reads and reads and reads.

Also she loved The Week Junior? Good luck! Encourage and suppprt. CGp books are great!

I am probably defensive too because I think that a lot of parents just need some guidance from the teacher, and I feel bad for parents who just want to open a dialogue and feel scared of seeming pushy. I've had my fair share of pushy parents too, of course, but we cant be a partnership when the parents feel like they can't approach the 'experts' with a simple query without being pulled apart over some minor mistakes they made. My door is always open to any parents who want clarification about something, and keeping communication simple and factual avoids any confusion.

But you make sure they know the fundamentals of the subject first - you don't just assume that because Mum says they're very advanced that you don't have to bother with the basics of French/Music/Textiles/whatever in the first ten weeks.

There are some great proper books out there. My 4yo has been able to read since he was two. The owl who was afraid of the dark is great. A lot of the Oi Frog series have really good vocab and they’re obv still kids books. Similarly Hairy McClary. Elmer as well.

I can’t speak about the school side as we home ed so don’t need to worry about that.

Not worth raising it in reception.

once she hits year one you may see more tailored reading and homework and teaching. Just do what the school want and make sure you are on it at home.

I'm not about to get into a discussion about my typing errors when using a phone in the dark and I think that's really unnecessary. The person who made that comment really has no idea and it's really quite narrow minded of them to make that assumption. I don't need to justify the fact that I am more than qualified to teach. I'll just leave that there.

Thank you for the genuine responses. Actually what I really didn't want to do was to insist my daughters class teacher, she has an excellent rapport with my daughter and is very well respected among the rest of the students and parents. My sticking point is that it's actually the PPA teacher (only one day a week) who sets the reading material for my daughter and she is less effective than the main teacher. In fact this was quite unprofessional of her, but the main teacher did actually imply that her PPA cover wasn't quite as effective as she should be. The last thing I was is to insult anyone, the school is lovely and the teachers are lovely, I just want to support my daughter to be the best reader that she can be and unlock a whole world of learning for her future. I'm really unsure why there are so many negative comments on quite a simple post and I don't care to address them. I really am just trying to help my daughter.

Jeez.

It’s digraph not diagraph.

Somebody else got this irrelevant point in before you.

My dd could read fluently when she started school.

I did and said nothing and dd just joined in with phonics which was probably twenty minutes a day and we read different books at home.

Children are assessed very regularly on their phonics in most schools. It may be that your DD has been put in the top set for phonics. What exactly would you want her teacher to do with her whilst trying to teach phonics to the rest of the group?
Your point about teaching her to read with a completely different system is pretty bonkers tbh. It’s like one of your students being taught your subject at home but using a totally different syllabus.
Just get her some nice books from the library to read with you at home.

It’s very relevant when the person is a secondary teacher who is complaining about a 4 year old teacher’s methods of teaching reading. It’s not a typing error and neither is it a spelling that predictive text would throw up. It’s made me chuckle though 😂