How often does yourreception aged child read with their Teacher/TA?

[blowninonabreeze]

DD1 started reception this year.

On day 2 she was given a reading book and diary (initially without words but has since progressed to basic words) with instructions to document when she read at home and leave it in the book changing box at school once she'd read in twice. We also got a letter explaining that they woukd aim to hear children read once a week but it may be less at busy times of year.

To date no-one has heard DD read. (4 weeks)

Now I know reading isn't the be all and end all but its my only outside measure of attention DD recieves in school - and in a month there's none!

What is normal? Are my expectations too high? I'm worried that I'm doing reading 'wrong' as she's struggling to blend the letter sounds together - but despite documenting this in her reading diary - nothing. Is it ok that DD seems to get most of her clues from combining the first sound of the word with the picture in the book?

From reading all this, it seems that it wildly varies amongst schools. But given that schools all I have to adhere to national curriculum I suppose they will catch up if necessary (?) My dd is at large school with large class size so I don't think class size is the issue necessarily. May be expectations and aspirations of teachers play a role or how the school is managed?

If we are talking about 1-1 reading (rather than guided reading in a group) then it will take a teacher a lot more than a couple of hours to hear a class of 30.

I have helped in school and heard readers, and I would estimate I could hear 5-6 in an hour - including changing book, writing comments in book, trying out words etc etc.

That's actually up to 6 hours for the class, which is effectively a whole day's teaching.

I've said it before but I'll say it again - I would rather the teacher spent time teaching than doing something I am more than able to do at home. Teacher shd hear chn read regularly to check progress - but not once a week and certainly on every 1-2 days!

DD is in a R/Y1/Y2 class and all the children read 1-1 to an adult every day plus guided reading once a week.S 6 times per week in totalNot many pages but I thin little and often is better.Sometimes TAs , grandparents sometimes school administrative staff, sometimes HT and sometimes class teacher.

OP says:

"Is it ok that DD seems to get most of her clues from combining the first sound of the word with the picture in the book?"

No, it isn't OK at all. That's not reading, it's guessing and may cause her to develop very bad habits which ultimately hinder her progress in reading.

Has she brought home 'sounds' to learn at all? She really shouldn't be expected to read any books until she has mastered some letter/sound correspondences and has been taught how to use her knowledge to 'decode' the sounds in a written word and blend them together to produce the word. And, the books she gets to practice this skill with should only contain words which are within her current state of phonic knowledge.

If this isn't the case I would be quite worried about the school's method of teaching reading because it isn't in line with the current, very good, govt guidance.

My job is remediating reading difficulties in secondary school. I suspect that schools like the one your DD attends provide me with quite a lot of work [sa

My DCs were listened to very rarely in class, it's not ideal, but I was happy to take the strain.

I agree with maizieD that you need to guide her away from using clues - it's natural in a child that age, but needs to be nipped in the bud.

I used to play a game called What's in the Box? you get a shoebox, put a small, phonically decodable toy/object/picture, and stick the name of the object on the outside of the box.
You then ask them what's in there. The point is that there are no clues at all - just the letters, but if they can work it out correctly they get a real buzz out of it. (obviously that sounds a bit hard core, but like all these things you do it with love and encouragement and pitch it at the right level).

Thank you MaizieD and everyone else who's replied.

I don't want to set DD up with bad habits, I would rather she wasn't reading AT ALL than just reading with me, as I'm worried that I'm doing it wrong and progressing her through levels she's not ready to progress through yet. Whilst she knows all her letters, she doesn't know all the phonics sounds.

I think I'll ask at school tomorrow