free reading in reception age child

[racmac]

DS is 5 and has just finished the reading bands in school. Teachers have suggested he brings in his own books to read.

He has just started horrid henry - any other suggestions that dont have too much in the way of older topics?

and book banding doesn't enter in the process

I would designate myself a 'free reader' - in that I choose the books I want to read. But I would never say that I have nothing left to learn - at one point in my adult life (pre children) I started reading literary criticism about books I had read and knew well, and realised how very little I really knew.

So by your definition, nobody is a free reader, because there is ALWAYS more to learn. My definition is different, and is to do with choice, self selection without always having to 'make progress' in every book, and reading through deire to read, which is why I have said we are splitting hairs.

not in an educational sense but of course we are all free readers for pleasure even 5 year olds. However I maintain telling a 5 year old (and their parent) that they are a free reader is a con

I completely agree with mrz. I loathe the phrase "free reader" at infants school. It implies we are not monitoring the child's reading skills or providing reading experiences that will continie to develop their skills. It smacks of off you go, there is nothing more to learn. It suggests they are ready to read anything you like from Magic Kitten to Chaucer with fluency and understanding. Just because a child has finished all of the scheme / schemes doesn't mean they have nothing more to learn.

Agree with mrz' definition. Do these reception free readers actually understand the majority of what they read?
OP, I have no suggestions for your son, sorry.

Forgot to say I think it's a total cop out for her to suggest your son choose books. (Although I think he should)
She should be suggesting what will challenge him/ be appropriate for him etc. If she doesn't know she should refer you to someone or a website that does. Very surprised at that.
By the way, does your son understand all of Horrid Henry?
My son is storming through his levels in reception but no where near Horrid Henry - Wow!

my daughter was a "free reader" by this stage in reception in that she was off the reading scheme. BUT the school certainly had plenty of books for her to read from their class library.
i would be wary of a school saying "bring in books from home" - surely they should be offering appropriate books?

DD1 was a big fan of non fiction books at that age. Ask the school for the X-BOT series of books.

Is he writing book reviews? if he is a great reader then wonderful, keep reading the books even if easy but focus on developing the other skills around comprehension/character appraisals, write your own alternative ending etc....

Winnie the Witch chapter books
Dr Seuss books

Msz. I have great respect for your experience but your long post about what is expected of a Reception child is horrendous - a bureaucratic nightmare. Thank goodness my children were encouraged to become independent readers as early as possible - what came across was their sheer love of books, , delight in language, excitement for what happens next, character description, humour, anarchic events, mystery, magic. They didn't need a whole lot of bureaucratic tosh to read widely and deeply. Yours is one of the most depressing posts I've ever read.
Yes, and I'm deeply involved with appropriately decodable books for the 20%-30% of children who still need them following a term or two of SP teaching.

You may find mrz's post depressing, but those are the criteria that teachers have to assess children against when making level judgements.

You begin to wonder where the joy has gone! I discovered that I could read in the infant class and from that moment on I was hooked and read anything and everything. I have never been without a book on the go ever since. I finish one and start the next. It is perfectly possible for a DC to be a free reader at that age, it doesn't mean they won't be doing group reading, reading in literacy, reading for different purposes etc but they can be free to pick books for themselves and the local library is the best resource.
I'm glad that I was at school before boxes had to be ticked as a first priority and I was allowed to pick my own book and get lost in it.

Well, mrz, you'll struggle to find any adult fitting your definition of having 'nothing more to learn'. I myself have plenty to learn - for example, I know very little Romanian and even less astrophysics, and find the Cantos of Ezra Pound challenging reading. I'm not certain I could answer all your comprehension questions on them, but I feel fairly sure I'm learning something just from reading them. I know it's facetious to compare my reading experience to a Reception child who's advanced in decoding and comprehension, but if we follow your argument to its logical conclusion, you'll see that there is a big gap between 'the teacher has told my child he can bring books to read in from home' and 'the school has said my child has nothing more to learn and that it has nothing more to teach him'.

Nobody ever said to me "Your son is a free reader", but there was a partnership between me and my son's reception teacher, in which we discussed what he needed to gain from his reading; as I say, he was studying all the many things you list in a formal way in guided reading sessions, and was being questioned on them when he read his individual book to the teacher/TA /parent helper.

DS1 is classed as a 'free reader' - currently Reception, but the oldest in the year. His reading age has been assessed at just shy of 11 years.

They say he is a free reader in as much as he can pick, with help, any book from the school library. Of course, they monitor for age appropriateness, and try and ensure that he picks wisely.

He writes a report about each book he reads, with a picture, which is good because is helpful to assess comprehension (they also talk to him about the books he has read and have got him in the habit of writing out any words he wasn't sure about so they can talk about meanings/context). Also helpful because his writing (letter formation) is nowhere near as good as his reading - he had no pencil grip when he started and NO interest in writing/drawing whatsoever. Enormous changes in the last 2 terms.

He is also reading "First News" kids' newspaper, selecting favourite article (i.e. one about a cloud leopard). He reads the article aloud. Identifies (underlines) words he is unsure of, and then they discuss the topic. i.e. "sub-species" "diversity". Then in this particular example, they looked at the globe to see where indonesia is, and he wrote about where it is.

It is hard with fiction books to find appropriate books at school. THough they do have quite a lot. Poetry seems to go down well (Michael Rosen and others). He's very interested in puzzle books (like Dungeons and Dragons) and they have some mild versions of these. He does tend to choose information books more often. At home, he's reading beast quest, but still picks up old favourites (Gruffalo and so on).

I should add, that he read words like 'archaic', but had no idea what it meant. So what he's learning at the moment is how to work out meanings from context. But there will still be themes that he wouldn't understand. I'm not sure that he's ready for Horrid Henry at the moment. I don't think he'd get it.

Ditto most other fiction books aimed at the higher end of primary. I'm racking my brains for recent hits, fiction wise. He like gross stuff, and there was one about snot I seem to recall . A chapter book called cat tales I think. Various ones.

But in terms of pleasure, he still will gravitate to the ones like Tom and the Night Pirates and short stories like the Lucy and Tom collection. Actually he rather liked My Naughty Little Sister (unusually, given how snot and gore obsessed he is) and other Shirley Hughes as well. Am thinking we might try the Secret Seven, though am not mad keen on Blyton.

I agree singergirl and if I was in a class studying literacy as an adult I wouldn't expect the lecturer to cop out and say bring in a book from home because you are a "free reader"! I would expect them to provide texts that would stretch me and help me to learn ... just as a teacher should do with a child.
Free read for pleasure structured read for learning.

singergirl your son may be being taught skills in guided reading but the OP has said she has been told "books are thin on the ground" so does that suggest her child is being offered appropriate choices or even getting guided reading?

just so you don't worry you don't need to know about Romania or astrophysics to know everything about reading ... but there is so much more than getting to the end of the school reading scheme especially if "books are thin on the ground".

A free reader is a child who can access even the 2000 English words which contain some tricky letters englishspellingproblems.co.uk/html/sight_words.html , such as 'once, only, people', without help. He or she has mastered basic English phonics and can 'work out' words which are not entirely decodable from context. They no longer need someone to sit next to them, listen to them read and help them out when 'stuck' on the irregularly spelt words

Once a child has reached that stage, it's probably much better for parents to keeep an eye on, and influence, what they read at home than for the teacher. S/he will still get plenty of English teaching at school, but they no longer need learning-to-read 'homework'.

You don't need reading homework because stopping you is the difficult thing-I used to have a torch under the bedclothes! Reading aloud got plenty of practice because I was always reading to younger siblings and you quickly realise that you need to to use expression to hold the interest of a 2 yr old.

Do we need a separate thread about what the term "free reader" means to people?

mrz's version seems too set the bar too high, and wraps it all up in jargon (nothing wrong with jargon, btw, it is very specific for the initiated regular users, though sometimes not helpful to others); mashabell's too low and formulaic.

I'd opine that for most parents it simply means "off the reading scheme" and free to choose their own books (from whatever the school offers next). It wouldn't occur to me that it would mean the end of teaching English.

I agree with you meditrina.

I let my ds2 choose all sorts of inappropriate books to read - pretty much anything that takes his fancy, whether Astrosaurs (he loves these...), picture books, fact books or Harry Potter. Normally he chooses to read the trickier books after they've been read out loud to him by parents attempting to entertain their older child. I would hope the school wouldn't take this attitude to his reading matter, though, or no-one will ever know how much of what he's reading he actually understands.

That's what I think it means, too. Actually, for children who 'finish a reading scheme' early (I'll put that in inverted commas so we don't need to agree precisely what it means ), getting them to read lots of different things is unlikely to be a problem.

Though as mrz points out, in the case of the OP's school, there may be some underlying insufficiencies.

But don't you all think mrz has a point? This child is, in reception class being told that they should bring their own books in because the school has no provision for them.

I actually find that quite shocking and would have thought some sort of consideration as to what type of books are best for continued learning would have been appropriate.

I know that budgets are tight but really, is there nothing the school can provide?

agree migrating, it is shocking. why can't he choose from the Y1/2/3 readers if books are really in that short supply.
it sounds more to me that the teacher sees him as a child who can read who she doesn't have to worry about.

Pooka for snot etc take a look at Dirty Bertie series.