What is your YR1 doing?

[clare40]

Just wondering as my daughter's teacher seems to have a very slow approach to everything. They are still doing single sounds, which my LO new at nursery. I feel totally frustrated....but anyway what is the norm?!

chocolate

mr z aren't you working in a very deprived area?

I suppose if they can write one sentence , they can write 100.It doesn't require any new skills.The question is whether it is wise to make a 5 yo do so??

Brassband - not quite. It requires more hand strength, more concentration, more ability to sit still. More thinking. More ideas. It's a lot more complicated to right 5 sentances than 1.

IndigoBell in reception I worked with a very good experienced Nursery Nurse (level 4) I don't have a TA in Y2.

We have children with poor language skills, poor motor development poor social skills ... you name it we have it but we target it early and put lots of work in with individual children and focus on what our children need.
but no we don't get all children to level 3 at the end of KS1

brassband yes we are in the bottom 18% according to Sure Start statistics but according to Fischer Family Trust the top 10% in achievement

brassband the children aren't made to do it they choose to do it

mrz - this just all makes me cry. I will never know if my DD has been 'damaged' by bad teaching or is incapapble of learning. But not one of her 3 teachers or her 3 TAs or me have been able to teach her anything remotely like 'a normal amount of progress'. And I will never know if it was bad teaching or not.

But how can it be bad teaching when no-one has been able to teach her? Her memory is so poor that she just can't learn or recall her 44 phonics.

But if it's not bad teaching then how come you can teach all your children?

And now I have to wait another 2 months to see if her current teacher / TA can or can't teach her anything.....

IndigoBell has your child been seen by an EP?

I think every child has to be helped to achieve the best they possibly can, obviously there are differences as children are individuals.

The SpLD team has an EP and promise me she will get assessed if she hasn't made any progress by Dec.

Her prev school refused black and blue to send her to the EP and kept on insisting she was making good progress. They gave her a level 1a in reading and 1b in writing in her SATS - yet the SpLD team who assessed her at the same time gave her a W.

Her new school has put her back (again) on Level 2 ORT. (This is the 4th time she has been put back to level 2) And I've got another year of read, write, inc to look forward to.

(Her previous school also used read, write, inc)

She has had 10 minutes 1:1 with a TA or teacher every day since half way through reception. A TA on her table all the time and has been in a phonics group of 4 every day. And just can't read at all. (Maybe a 1c max?)

The SpLD team gave her a reading age of 5.07 with a real age of 7y 3m.

This is the most telling paragraph from the SpLD report: Whilst the SAT suggests she is almost at level 2 on the NC, she did not demonstrate this in reading real words, non-words, or real passages. Her test performance is below level 1, which would be a real concern if accurate.

Their recommendations? Continue with read, write, inc and they will re-asses her in Dec :(

My first step would be to find out which sounds she does know and work with those for reading and spelling short cvc words then ccvc & cvcc words so start with "top" then "stop" then "tops" type activity.
I would also do lots of aural blending all the time so say "pass me the /c/ /u/ /p/ please" "Would you like /p//ea//s/ or /b//ea//n//s/?"

probably a silly question but has hearing and sight problems been ruled out?

Yes, hearing and sight problems have been ruled out.

She can read cvc words - and on a good day ccvc / cvcc words as well (although never anything more than this). But she still has to slowly read each word /c/ /u/ /p/ - 'c u p' and never seems to get any more fluent. And would read it just as slowly the next time she saw the word. And the next. And the next. She has almost no sight words.

In year 2 her IEP for the first half of the year was to learn 20 of the 45 reception high frequency words. And she failed to achieve it :(

Now, I know those are 'whole words' and not 'synthetic phonics' - but unable to learn 20 words when a TA has been working with her on those words for 6 months?

For the second half of the year her target was to write the alphabet in 3 minutes :( (which I got changed - because she could almost do this at this stage )

Just to clarify - there is nothing else wrong with her. She is not 'thick'. If you had a conversation with her you would have absolutely no idea that she was so behind her peers.

Have you tried Precision teaching? It works for some children as they like the competition with themselves the aim is to complete each step in one minute

www.aminuteaday.co.uk/

I work in a Y1 class in a typical infant school here locally, and can assure you that most of our children are not at the level mrz's school are at in Y1. This applies for reading and writing levels at the very least. IME mthe school mrz achieves way higher than average in these areas - well done to them, but not my experience at all sadly.

Some of the children are capable of writing A4 sides - although by no means even half. Some can write more, but many write farless. We have a few children who are still mark making, unable to form any letters at all.

Reading - ours range from pink (do have a couple of children not really at this level yet even) up to orange or so.

Phonics - varies again. A couple who appear to know all their sounds and are now ready to move on, but equally some who are still learning single letter sounds. The majority are working mid way through phase 3.

Maths - just finished some classroom assessments. Again massive variation here. Sme not recognising all their numbers to 10 yea, a couple who can't count to 10 yet. Many who are still learning number bonds and just starting to do simple add/subtract. A handful who are working really well in numeracy and working on more challenging work.

What are we doing at the moment?

Lots of continous provision (learn through play), outdoor provision and physical stuff.

Daily phonics, weekly reading

Literacy - activities based around our book, wrtiting, phonics work, story telling, 3 part stories, story mountains, finger spaces, letter formation, full stops nd capital letters

Numeracy - number bonds and making 10/20, ordering numbers, writing and reading number sentences/sums, number formation

Phonics - pahse 3 sounds, segmenting 3/4 letter words, reading 3/4 letter words using sounds above

I don't use Letters & Sounds as I find it slow but would normally be teaching the beginning of phase 5 in the summer term of reception.

How do you deal with children who have SEN/SN? What about EAL children coming in with no or limited English?

I work in a fairly normal infant school with avery mixed and varied intake, wihth hildren coming from all manner of backgrounds. We have a significiant number of children with free school meals, higer than average SN/SEN and higher than average EAL. I can't see how in our school we could possibly have all children working at such high levels so quickly, even after three terms.

What levels in SATs do the children achieve in the Y2 and Y6 tests? If working like that already in YR and Y1 they must be almost all getting L3 by Y2.

I think it is amazing the result syour school achieve. Why do more schools not manage those high achievements so soon?

I use Jolly Phonics so SEN & EAL children usually pick up the actions fairly quickly and then progress onto saying the sounds. Making it visual helps so show a picture or object say the word and segment the sounds build it with magnetic letters. Drip drip drip like Chinese water torture little but often repeat repeat repeat whole class differentiate by question.
I also use Action words when I first introduce "tricky words" so again there is an action and a visual prompt.
We have quite a transient school population so we often lose children and gain others who are struggling which isn't too big an issue if they arrive in Y2 but a big problem if they arrive Easter of Y6.
Even so we usually achieve 90%+ level 4 or above in reading and writing with 50%+ achieving level 5.
We also regularly achieved 100% in science before the test was scrapped.
and we don't teach to the test

We do Jolly Phonics too and small daily phonics lessons, but not getting all those children through to Y1 knowing thir sounds. Must be working wonders in your school.

Mind some of our EAL children are not even speaking proper English at all when they arrive, having never been to nursery or preschool and pretty much having only heard their other language for the first 4-5y of their lives.

And our SN/SEN children do vary massively, including some working that very very low/young levels due to their SN.

But there must be ways.

Shame mre schools can't achieve so high.

I have a Polish boy in my class this year who arrived in reception with no English at all, neither parent spoke any English at that point but he picked up JP fairy quickly blending and segmenting took longer as he didn't know any English words so we worked on his favourite things which were cars.

Very impressive.

Y1 does letters and sounds, every day reading with a volunteer parent, and all assessments are done by the teacher. Maths with the teacher such as counting in 2, 5,10, easy additions and substractions on printable sheets, learning the time, and writing. Children study science through play based activities i.e making play dough or playing with corn flour and water, or many other resources. They learn about things like light and dark, etc. All activities are interlinked with a theme chosen every term Example: Celebrations around the world. Children have stories read at circle time and the subject would relate to other curricular subjects:geography, history, maths, art and crafts, language, etc. They also do PE and religious education. Trust me... I worked as a volunteer in more than one outstanding state school in Epsom and you would be shocked how much children are being taught.In my opinion, it is too much and too early! However, my child is often asked if he goes to a private school, as he always talks about his extra curricular activities provided by the school such as piano lessons, football, french. Not to mention ballet, choir after school club. My child finished Y1 and was assessed recently as being above average (reading Y3 and maths Y2), therefore I think his school does a very good job. Most of the parents work hard with the school too.

mrz would love to arrange a visit to your school and see the writing in y1 in action.

I'm a literacy consultant and even in the very 'best' school I work with (super dynamic, rigorous phonics, lots of purposeful/fun/exciting reasons to write, OFSTED outstanding, sig+ in all areas) does not have all their y1s, less than half a term in, capable of writing a full page of A4.

This is not in anyway supposed to sound as if I doubt what you say, I enjoy your thoughtful, knowledgeable posts but I feel there would be something to be learned from a professional visit. Does you Head encourage it?

yes we get lots of visitors

mrz - can these y1 children spell when they write 20 lines of A4 or are they just writing very short words? Or doesn't spelling matter at this stage? Is the writing joined up? Just interested.

and am I being dim, but why isn't a school doing this sort of thing in an 'oustanding' category? does it not translate to results?