DD in reception, just had a parent teacher meeting...

[norksinmywaistband]

I met with DD's reception teacher earlier this week and was informed she has been placed on the G&T list for literacy and maths.
Her reading is very good, but I would not say amazing.
And her basic mathmatical skills are also good, but not imo over and above others of her age.

I feel that she is performing within this group due to her memory rather than excellence in any particular area.

She appears to have a photographic memory, any story , event, film etc is stored and can be recalled word for word. She therefore can sight read very well due to recalling the word rather than breaking it down, although she can also do this.

If I read a long story to her she reminds me if I have missed a word, even if she is not looking at the text.

Her teacher has suggested a few different things to try at home, such as reading books backwards and getting her to tell the story to ensure comprehension as I was concerned - I now know she can do this she can do this.

I am worried about her not fitting in with her peers if she continues to forge ahead in class

However her behaviour at home is awful, very attention seeking and tantrummy and I worry this is because she may be being pushed too hard at school.

Please reassure me

Well I didn't know they did G&T in reception.

And I've never heard of reading a book backwards to ensure comprehension.

But I'm sure someone else will have.

It sounds too full on to me. I am a TA in reception and we have a few children every year that are identified as G+T but all we basically do is make sure the work isn't too easy for them.

In all my time as a TA I have never heard of a child being asked to read a book backwards! not sure how that help comprehension as the story isn't going to make sense backwards anyway.

Please don't let the school push your DD too hard at this very young age. She has so many years ahead of her to worry about all that.

Sorry obviously not that good at grammar and sentence structure myself.

The book reading backwards thing is to ensure she is reading the words, as once she has read a book she can recite rather than read it iyswim.

The teacher said it was a skill she would practice later in the school anyway when checking her work for spelling mistakes - a bit like proof reading so apparantly not odd

Just asked DD Y6 and DS Y4 and they both say they never have to read their work backwards for editing / spell-checking. Forwards, not backwards.

Very strange!

it may have been to understand whatthe nature of her photographic memory is.

My DS2 could recite back a book of decent length and can echo exactly substantial chunks of dialogue from films.He can look at a shelf of probably two hundred DVD in random order and tell you within moements which one DVD you have removed to fool him (darn it!)

But he doesn't understand 50 % of the words he has read or the dialogue he has heard as he has ASD.

There is seeing and remembering or seeing and remembering and understanding.
That may be what they were testing IYSWIM

Ds1 is in part time reception (summer baby) and was put on the G&T list when he was in nursery -linked to the school.
He has been described as a fluent reader who comprehends what he is reading at all times.
So i know some schools are more likely to 'target' then earlier.
He was/is sent round to year 2 E.R.R. lessons and is more than happy doing them.
Saying that his behaviour is very good at home and i'm sure that may change if he were unhappy doing it.

My DD was put on the G&T register for literacy in Reception but we were never asked to have her read books backwards. I think that is a bit crazy.

In the day to day life of school it doesn't mean a huge amount.

I vividly remember having to read books backwards to the teacher when I was in reception (many, many years ago). I think it was to be sure that I 'read' the words rather than memorise or predict them. Not that I think I was G&T!

Norks - I was a very fast reader (still am) with this type of photographic memory, and so is DD1 (now 12). I think it is fair to say that a lot of people find it difficult to believe that you really can be "taking it all in" when you read like that. Even now, at 45, I have people accusing me of "skim-reading" things. NO. I. READ. EVERY. WORD.
This type of visual recall can be a huge advantage at school - it certainly has paid off for DD1. She is now in year 8 and though the extremely accurate recall had diminished slightly as it did with me it makes subjects like science and modern languages much easier for her than for her friends as she finds it easy to memorise vocab, formulae etc. However, she still had to cope with disbelief - they did a test once to see how many words per minute they could read and NOBODY would believe that she wasn't cheating. It is a useful little gift to have and she will learn to use it to her advantage as she moves up the school system. Don't worry about the home behaviour either, IME nearly all reception children are ghastly at home, no matter how nice they were before they started school. HTH.