Y2 phonics for the more able: WWYD?

[Devexity]

My Y2 DS, who is a bumbling idiot at many things, has always been freakishly good at reading/spelling.

He's at an infants school that runs a vertically integrated phonics system. He was in the top group of that all of last year with a handful of Y2s. By the end of the year, his group had spent the last term prepping for KS1 assessments and repeating material. And when I say repeating material, I mean literally. Exactly the same worksheets and proofreading tasks etc.

At the beginning of this week he came home with the news that he's not doing it at all anymore. Instead he will be a student helper. All year.

It seems to me that the school has decided to opt out of educating him. Is that an unreasonable interpretation? Will this student helper lark actually be a fantastic personal growth opportunity? Anyone have any experience of this?

He's there to learn, not to teach. While I believe that being able to demonstrate or explain something to others shows that you have learned and understood it yourself, he deserves to improve his skills too.

I would complain to his teacher (and I am a y2 teacher BTW).

Start by finding out what exactly they mean.

If it means same worksheets in class, and just a way to keep him occupied with no new work for him, then I'd be very concerned.

Onimlap: The repeated worksheets thing was last year. This year he's helping to teach YR/1. Ugh.

lilac21: Thank you for confirming my impressions. The problem is, I think, that the entire teaching/TA staff is tied up in phonics groups at the same time, so there's nowhere for him to go and improve his skills. Do you think if I signed him up for Education City or something it would be reasonable to ask them to let him work at that while everyone else is in groups?

I agree that you need to find out more, but based on what you've said, I'd be unhappy about it too. I don't think it would be terrible for him to be a student helper once a week in the phonics session - learning to explain what he knows could be helpful for him and it could be a 'personal growth opportunity' too.

But if he can already read and spell well, he should be learning something different. He wouldn't need individual supervision necessarily. For example, he could be given dictionary work, vocabulary enhancing work, extended writing work (he could have a long story he works on during phonics sessions), comprehension work, a research project using the library etc (that's very easy for them to set up and he does all the work, but learns something).

Sorry: I don't think I said quite what I mean.

If he's "helper", will that mean he's helping the other children through those very same worksheets he's done twice already?

What will role as helper mean for classroom dynamics?

When will he get receive his education eg through new work suitable to his level?

Don't bother with Education City. It's not all that good.

But do push for him to be extending his literacy skills during literacy. Singersgirl gave very good suggestions.

Sorry, but it's not up to you to sort some appropriate work out, that is up to his teachers! Does the school set across KS1 or both stages for phonics? If they just set across KS1, there are surely a few other children in Yr 2 who have "finished" the phonics scheme they use as most schemes have all phonemes completed during R/yr 1. What are the yr 3 children doing at this point? I would be very concerned and extremely annoyed were this my son. I suggest you go and speak to the class teacher and explain you are unhappy about the lack of provision for him

Thank you, everyone.

Onimolap: Sorry for misunderstanding you. No, he's not helping with worksheets. He's doing phoneme work and letter formation with the set he's attached to for half an hour every day. As for when he receives his education: good question.

Singersgirl: Thank you very much for the suggestions, especially the extended writing work. I'll go in armed with those as alternatives.

Spanieleyes: You make a good point! Your question about Y3: it's an infants school, so we don't have a Y3. And yes - other Y2 pupils will max out of the phonics program during the course of the year. It seems to be a built-in failure.

What phonics programme is he doing??? Has he finished reading the scheme books that go with it?

Why will Y2 pupils "finish" phonics ... it sounds as if the school only teach so far then stop teaching anything new.

"Teaching" others how to do something is a good way to consolidate learning but if your child has repeated the same work twice it becomes overkill... they could at least have found a different set of worksheets!

Singersgirl's suggestions for differentiated work sound really good, and I hope his teacher is receptive.

I was a precocious reader (many years ago) at a free standing infants school. They borrowed some higher reading scheme books for me from the junior school I was destined for - could this be possible with a school near you. By the mid-year I'd finished those too, and was doing what is now called free-reading by bringing in home and library books.

Mumbar: The school created a jolly-phonics type of program that doesn't have attached scheme books. It's short, sharp intensive synthetic sessions once a day.

Last year, his group spent most of their time doing a mix of random 'wow' words, some KS2 prefix and suffix work, and some extension stuff - dictionary work, proofreading, practice SATS reading tasks etc

oh thats what I thought -couldn't imagine a scheme that just ended

There is more phonics beyond yr 2 stuff and the school have a duty of care to your DS to tailor his lessons to his needs. Is there a juniors on site who may already have appropriate work?

Onimolap: He's been a free reader since he started reception, and there are 'we have decided to not try and educate him' issues there too. At the open evening last year, DP and I had a chance to look through his 'Reading' folder. Carefully labelled with his name, age etc. Absolutely nothing in it.

Mrz: I agree entirely.

Sorry, when I said "finished" I meant the part of phonics included in the scheme they are using, clearly it doesn't progress far enough. Being an infants school is no excuse, the school couldn't just stop teaching bright mathematicians because they have already completed the Yr 2 syllabus, why are they doing the same for phonics?

Devexity suffix and prefix work is part of the Letters & Sounds programme for KS1 so it is possible they are following that. The Support for Support for Spelling programme is the follow on resource from the DfE which would give next stage lessons

Mrz - thanks for the link. Sadly for me, I am the type of hopeless loser who reads these kinds of documents for fun, which is how I know that they were doing KS2 stuff last year. Their spelling words and group tasks were lifted off the page - the high point being when DS came up with 'antidisestablishmentarianism' when they investigated dis- words.

And spanieleyes: unfortunately, they do sort of stop when they finish the Y2 syllabus for mathematics too.

Oh my God!
Sorry, I am a yr 5/6 teacher so I have some children ( especially mathematicians) who have effectively "completed the yr 6 syllabus" ( Two out of the 12 were level 6 in yr5) It doesn't mean I don't teach them this year. Nor will they just complete the yr 7 syllabus on their own from a book, or teach my lower ability children! Seriously, you must speak to their teacher about your concerns ( or change schools)

Thought I'd update this dusty thread for other parents in similar situations:

I went to the school with my concerns. They said because DS was working at a Y5+ level for phonics/spelling there was nothing they could realistically do for him. Instead of helping to teach phonics next half term, he (and any other children at that level) will be doing independent topic research four sessions a week, and writing reports on Fridays.

Very happy!

"nothing they could realistically do for him"
What rubbish!!!

Of course they could and should!
They could and should be supplying him (and any others) with year 5 level phonics and spelling work.
It is great that he will now be doing topic work and writing reports but they should be working on all his literacy skills (although it might be appropriate to focus on specific areas for a while if he is at a lower stage with these!)
It isn't that arduous as a minimum to get some year 5 workbooks/worksheets and set him work from that. They sell decent stuff in WH Smiths that he could have worked on, asking for help when needed! It isn't rocket science!!(This wouldn't have been ideal from a teaching point of view but would have been better than no progress with learning for a whole half term!!) Of course year 5 stuff may be tricky in terms of being content appropriate but I would have though that the phonics/spelling stuff would have been some of the easiest to cross over age boundaries. Ideally they should re-organise their groups so that at least a TA (with teacher direction) should be working with your son and any other very able students.
It's totally inappropriate that he has spent a whole half-term just helping younger children (agree with previous poster that his might have been appropriate for 1 session a week but not more).
I feel really angry about this!

The independent work is a whole lot better, but the school do have a duty to provide appropriately for your son's education including phonics and spelling and to make sure he gets sufficient teacher time/instruction/direction. If you haven't already done so, you could see what folk on the gifted and talented thread have to say as many of them may have had experience of dealing with this kind of issue!