Does your year 1 child read to themselves at home?

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DD is year 1 but summer born so still 5.

We have read to her all her life.

She reads her school books at home (they have to read 5 per week). She reads the Oxford Reading Tree books (Biff, Chip Kipper etc) and is on level 6 (orange label). She seems to find these ok, probably one or two “new” or tricky words for her in each book.

She is so reluctant to read the school books it is painful. I have come to hate it but obviously try to be jolly & encouraging.

She is totally reluctant to read anything else for herself out of school. She likes being read to. she has a book shelf of beautiful books.

If we are out and about, she will say “what does that sign say” and refuses to read it herself.

The other year one parents say their kids are reading Roald Dahl, David Walliams, Worst Witch etc which is so far ahead of DD’s level

Should I be worried?

My DS is in year 1 and about to turn 6.

DS is a good reader (turquoise books/level 7) but absolutely no interest in reading books independently yet. He gets 1 book from school a week. We tend to read that once and then I hear him read other things (he likes Claude atm) every night and then I read a chapter or 2 of a longer book to him. He loves hearing these stories from me and also listens a lot to audiobooks on his yoto player so I am hoping he will at some point realise that reading by himself will unlock all that too!

By contrast, my DC2 is only 3.5 but she is always sitting down and looking through her picture books by herself. I have no doubt that she will take to reading independently more quickly as she’s just more independent generally (2nd child neglect!). As long as you keep reading to them I think (hope) it will come eventually.

My eldest would happily read Roald Dahl etc to herself at 5. BUT she was slow at dressing herself, couldn't swim or ride a bike

Good reminder all kids are different. DD can easily swim a length of the big/adult pool and is a confident cyclist . Pity school don’t see that though so I just feel like she’s behind.

Be warned this is a boasting post. DD1 is about to turn 8 (in year 3) and is a complete book worm with a ready age of 12 1/2 yrs which isn’t unusual in her school. But no she didn’t read to herself at that age. The problem with early readers is they’re so boring. Julia songbirds book are a bit more interesting but still the story is simple.

The other year one parents say their kids are reading Roald Dahl, David Walliams, Worst Witch etc which is so far ahead of DD’s level

yeah. That’s what they say.

Yes my year 1 child reads roald dhal and worst witch type books to herself, she now reads to us at bed time instead of us reading to her

One of mine was reading those type books to herself. She's now 8 and fully fluent its amazing. My other one age 7 is stuck at phase 3 phonics and can hardly manage the pink level Oxford reading tree. All kids are different, it's not your parenting if you do 5 books a week that's for sure. One trick is get her reading toddler books to toddlers if you know any that way they feel capable and engage better. Reading text on screen for games and instructions etc may help motivate her? What are her interests? Ask for book recommendations then read with her but you only do the harder words. My reader liked the Princess in black series when she was younger.

I agree that that would be rare, but it's May, so these Year 1 DC might well be 6 and a half.

School will have an idea. They do PE and the disparity in physical confidence is probably obvious. It's easy to worry yours is behind.

Small children tend to be quite different - before they are old enough to deal social pressure to confirm they tend to spend their time doing what they enjoy. This makes them good at it, so they enjoy it and want to do it more! This can be quite polarizing. However, schools wolltarget weaknesses and encourage children in those areas,so you needn't worry at this stage. The teacher will flag it up if it's a concern. You could always ask for extra resources/suggestions for the summer holiday (depending on your availability)

My DD was exactly the same, turned out she had fairly mild dyslexia but not wanting to do her school reading was her way of telling us, just took us a few more years to realise!! Take the pressure off of you all, there are more important things in life than the speed they read, it will come. A big breakthrough for us came year 5 when she listened to Tom Gates audio books and it gave her access to the world of books without the stress. She then picked up the second book and read it herself and then the rest of the series.

By way of hope at age 15yrs she is now a book-a-holic!! Has read about 16 big 400 page novels this year alone (teenage Dystopian mainly). Admits words jump around sometimes still but she has learned to deal with it AND she recently was marked a grade 9 in a piece of English creative writing coursework for her GCSE’s so it is not holding her back at all.

My son struggled to read mid until the age of 7, by age 10 he couldn’t put a book down and reads constantly now as an adult in comparison to his sibling who read well from age 5 and was uninterested throughout their teens, 5 books a week is far too much

My year 2 is a real bookworm and is reading independently at a high level - he is part way through Discworld as an example.

But he didn't read independently in year 1 really, the odd bit of non fiction, like books about animals or whatever. I was starting to wonder if he was going to be a reader but then he just really took off with reading from the Christmas of year 2.

So I would just continue with what you're doing.

I very much doubt that they are reading them books that was more yr2 and my daughter is high reader in her class.

5 different books seems very intense,
maybe talk to the school and say you will complete less as it’s counter productive if she doesn’t like it

also some people just aren’t book readers: I could read a book a week my husband maybe one a year would rather read a magazine

Oh the other thing you could do to encourage reading is board games that involve reading cards.

Something like sleeping queens is good for that age group

I wouldn't be worried just yet, but I also wouldn't be reading things to her straight away.
If she asks you to read something tell her she has to try to read it for herself first. For my son he had to try 3 times before I'd read it to him - but that's only because he'd be silly and read words wrong that I knew he knew, because he was a lazy reader.

Don’t worry. I have a ten year old who has the most beautiful book collection who is really challenged by reading and generally just dislikes it despite all the encouragement in the world and I have a younger child who has ENJOYED reading since she could pick up a book. All children are different and you are doing nothing wrong if she doesn’t enjoy it. 5 books does seem a lot because we normally get 2/3 books from school and they have to read them a couple of times to get the words stuck in. It seems to work well.

What I do with my ten year old is he reads a sentence/paragraph and I’ll read the next one but obviously year 1 is different but point I am making Is make the reading time work for you guys and don’t feel pressured xxx

Nah I’d park this concern for now and revisit in year 2 if still an issue.

At this stage in Yr1, my eldest DD was just moving from Red to Yellow books (lv2-lv3). That is what counts as "behind". Your child is doing fine, try to relax. Shes probably tired and just had enough of books etc after a day at school.
(Shes nearly 13 now and can read perfectly well now.)

We really struggled with the books and independent reading. However we went to the library and found some Minecraft books which they loved. I also knows kid who loves non fiction fact books.

Sounds as though the reading scheme in your child's school is not making this easy. My daughter's school uses RWI and they keep 1 book per week, they become super confident with the content and happily read the books as they are so familiar with the vocab, basically they "master "it.

Sometimes it's better to have a go at one line each, or even the child reads a couple of words (hopefully the same so it's s repetition) and slowly you can move her on to a whole line, then a whole paragraph etc. The main point being that she isn't feeling under pressure. Keep asking her to read out words you see out and about but maybe focus on a sound, e.g th as in think, thanks, etc. per week. Maybe you could ask the school to let her have the same book all week to help the situation (I'm a teacher and have taught phonics, one book a day sounds a bit mad...).

Look up Geraldine the Giraffe on YouTube and have a look at the sounds, this could give you some ideas about how to make the process fun at home.

Good luck!

In my experience they read when they're ready (baring any learning difficulties obvs), and too much pressure before they're ready is counter productive. This sounds like way, way too much pressure for a child who is still very young and clearly not ready yet.
My eldest didn't read for pleasure until he was 8, but now at 10 is a total bookworm. His younger brother (yr 2) is still not keen so I'm letting him go at his own pace and ignoring the school's timeline. Pushing them to read when they don't want to is only going to make them hate reading - at this age she should just be enjoying stories (read by you) and building positive associations with books.

Biff Chips and Kipper are so incredibly boring that I'm not surprised they are reluctant! My dc did better when I bought our own reading books. The Julia Donaldson songbirds set is good. My dc also did quite well with the simpler Dr Seuss books like Hop On Pop. And we got some books I thought were boring but we're about things the dc liked - rainbow fairies, star wars etc. And we used to do "tap reading" where we would read together, generally a book with a story, and could tap the book and the other person would take over.

My son was similar, he wasn’t in the least bit interested in reading but he liked being read to.

That changed when he got to 8 years old and wanted to play a specific strategy based game & needed to read the rules & details. He could & would read those for pleasure but still struggled with reading any other books because he didn’t see the point.

He’s now in his early 20s, doing a masters in a subject which requires lots of reading, having completed a degree in a subject which requires some literature analysis. He still doesn’t like reading!

I would suggest you monitor your child’s progress and see if there is anything that sparks their interest that they will read (instruction manuals, game rules, recipes etc) but not necessarily worry about it too much yet.

Yes as above, don't worry. DS is just starting to be able to read to himself quite well but he is mid age for year 1. DD was a free reader right at end of year 1, it just suddenly seemed to click and she is summer born.

DD is in yr1 and loves being read to but no way could she read something like Worst Witch by herself. She’s on the yellow band of RWI which I think is fairly middle of the road for her age? Shes recently started picking up some of DS’s toddler/board books to read to him, I think because she’s confident she can read those without any help (and he’s a captive audience!)

Mine ds is reluctant . Although, they can read my phone when they look over my shoulder.

I think they see it as a chore.