Reading: do teachers REALLY listen?

[RedGruffalo]

I found out by chance today that it appears my DD's teacher (Y2) is doing other things whilst listening to her read (including helping other children with work).

I am quite taken aback!

Thinking it through I can imagine that the teacher can't give completely undivided attention and must have to keep an eye on other things, but firstly isn't it sending out the wrong message not to give someone your attention when they are reading to you? Secondly, DD missed some words that she didn't understand, she was not helped or corrected and I only found out about this whole thing because she asked me to hep her with the words tonight. Probing some more I found out this is the norm, and also happened at her previous school.

She in in a private school (20 in class, with 2 teachers)

Can any teachers tell me, am I being naive to expect someone to actually listen when DD reads?

Doesn't sound good. But it's all relative: at dd's school the teachers rarely hear the children read at all, as there just isn't time - they are entirely reliant on parent volunteers.

It can happen sometimes but isn't ideal.

I tend to make it pretty clear to my class not to interupt me when I am listening to readers. They tend to respect it most of the time.

My dd's teacher listens to her read quite rarely - she's in year 1, and I think she's only been heard by the teacher about six times in total, if the reading record is anything to go by. (They do have guided reading as well, and dd is heard by a TA at other times.) I know that a lot of people would be unhappy with this, but when she does hear dd read, she is obviously giving her real 1:1 attention, and the comments that she writes later in her reading record are really helpful and specific.

I think a lot of teachers are probably under a lot of pressure to read with the children very regularly, and I guess this is the result. I think it's unacceptable, really, and I'd far rather that the teacher heard her read less often but with her full attention, as happens at dd's school now. I mean, I'm sure teachers are great at multi-tasking, but they only have one brain!

All children in my class have a guided reading session at least once a week, with similar ability children,reading 'challenge' books. We focus on various things, such as punctuation and expression. Children who need extra help are heard individually (with an adult's complete attention.) 95% of children in my class read to their parents at least 3 times a week.

In addition to this, they have daily, hour long phonics lessons, focussing on reading, spelling and writing.

I think this is what happens when there is a pressure for teachers themselves to hear individual readers. This is why guided reading was introduced - allows better use of teacher time and more actual teaching of reading to take place. In dd's school mostly it is ta who hear readers and every so often teacher. But teacher responds promptly to comments I have written so system works well.

I'm sure it's all down to time pressures but certainly not so great for the child reading. At my DD's old school they used to ask for parent volunteers to come and listen to reading just about every day (so it was always 1:1). It seemed to work quite well.

I wear a hat when I dont want to be interrupted (while hearing readers etc) and my class know and are very good with that!

In our school they rely on volunteers too to lisen to the children read 1 to 1.

AT DCs school they often have parent volunteers listening to reading, but the teacher does keep regularly re-assessing the reading (at least once a month ish) and will do so if someone else (reading record, parent volunteer or TA) flags up a problem or that they are finding things a bit easy.