Please explain this approach to teaching reading

[schnitzelvoncrumm]

DS2 is in reception. His class have been learning the phonic sounds. I think they have done about 16 so far, since September. Some children, including DS2, have begun to get reading books. These are "look-and-say" Ginn books. As far as I can understand from DS1 and DS2, children get to take a reading book home when they show the teacher they know their phonic sounds and can sound out CVC words.

DS2 started school able to read reasonably well - he gets simple books from the library, and if they have a coloured band he does well with blue, and gets through green with a bit of help. He has known all his letter sounds for at least 9 months, and knows things like "sh" and "th" and "ai" and "igh" because that's how I taught him to read.

At parents evening a few weeks ago, I told the teacher that DS2 could read. He had just read "Green Eggs and Ham" the day before and was pleased with himself for reading a book with so many pages. The teacher said she wasn't going to give him a reading book until he was settled.

He got his first reading book on Wednesday. It was called "look" and the text was "look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look." DS2 read it quite happily, then moved onto DS1's book (which I think was orange band) and read the first few pages with only one or two words that he questioned. I wrote this in his reading record.

Today he has come home with a book called "frog spell" where the text is "look in here, look, look here, look". I don't get it. Does the teacher not believe DS2 can read? It's possible that DS2 is pretending he can't but I don't really think he would. I have the feeling that DS2 is going to have to plod through every book at Ginn Level 1 and 2 and 3 and so on, notwithstanding the fact he can read stuff already.

Is there a point to this? Is this a belt-and-braces approach to make sure he's not missing anything? Should I keep quiet and just let DS2 do his own thing at home, and write down what he reads in his reading record? Or should I say something to the teacher? This is the child who saw the sign to the school reception area at his summer visit at age 3.9 and said "that says reception so I need to go that way"...

Talk to his teacher. The first couple of stages of ginn are grim grim grim. It does get better though DD qute enjoys hte later books now she's in year one

Sounds like when DS1 was at his first school. Eventually I got sick of telling them he could read and we just took books out the library, and he just did a cursory glance at the school books when they came home on the first night.
6 weeks before the end of the summer term when bizarrely enough I had just resolved that I would try one more time to show them the sort of books he was reading at home (Faraway tree, harry potter etc) the teacher came out of school all excited and sought me out "We've just realised your DS can read, his reading age is at least 4 years ahead" Still made him read every book in the school reading scheme though, as that was there 'policy' and he might find A word that he didn't know . So for the next few months he got 6 books a night to get to the part of the reading scheme where he should be.

I hope you have a slightly less painful experience!

You have taught him phonics, the school is paying lip service to teaching him phonics, and the school is giving him reading books written for 'look & say'.

'Look & Say' is based on the theory that no-one needs to know anything about phonics, you just 'learn' words by seeing them over and over and over and over again. Look & Say books are highly repetitive (as you have seen), have extremely limited vocabulary and will not make any contribution to consolidating his letter/sound knowledge or give him any practice in sounding out and blending 'new' words (either because there aren't any new words, or because the words will not be 'matched' to his current level of phonic knowledge.

Sadly, it seems that the vast majority of English KS1 teachers have very little idea of how to teach phonics properly or support phonics teaching with appropriate reading material. (That is certainly the impression I get from reading posts on here, but perhaps you're just all unlucky in the schools your dcs attend )

He won't miss a thing by not working his way through the scheme. Just get him books from the library.

still plodding through the reading scheme here in y1. we have reached the dizzy heights of yellow band 3 which are oh so challenging compared to her real reading library books, such as flat stanley.

maizie d, it is not the ks1 teachers who are in charge of the budget and they have to follow school policy and use the only books that are available.

I've read quite a lot on here before about dcs being made to read every book at each level before they can move up to the next. Why do so many schools do this? It's insane isn't it? Try & have a word with a mum with a child in an older class (perhaps an older sibling with a child in your dcs class,) to see how your school works.

Even if your school is one of the more flexible ones (fingers crossed,) tbh most schools do like to take things slowly in reception. Theres a lot going on & most of it isn't about learning to read its more about gaining social skills & the rules of school. Ds finished foundation level 9 ORT, (I think,) got level 11 week 1 of yr 1 & was free reader the next, so you might just need to bear with them, things seem to move a lot faster once they're in year 1.

Hi

This sort of thing makes me so MAD . . ! I often can't believe some schools are actually in 2011 when they are teaching in styles more suited to 1911 !

I have worked, mostly as TA, now voluntary helper supporting reading, in Primary for over twenty years. I am in the happy position, and have been in some other schools I've worked in, that we are allowed to be FLEXIBLE, matching what we do and teach to the NEEDS of the child. There should be no "this is the way we have always done it, so that is the way it will stay" mentality, but sadly there is.

And so often it is you unfortunate parents who fume about it, and your children who, for a while at least, are getting a pretty raw deal.

Twenty years ago a Yr 1 class I was in were coming up with words for the letter V. One bright child came up with 'vacuum cleaner'. But the teacher wrote up on the board vacume cleaner!! (and that really is true!) I was a new TA at the time, only a few months into the job, but I tactfully suggested it wasn't quite right. Had I not done so, twenty exercise books would have gone to twenty homes with VACUME written in them.

That, I admit, is a very extreme example, but, contrary to what we all believed and assumed when WE were children, teachers are not all-knowing, all-seeing super-beings, but just ordinary people!

( except for a few: maizieD, mrz, and others I can't off hand recall.)

So, keep giving him a broad range of material yourself, let him enjoy stories, poems, non-fiction etc, and I hope things improve for you all.

blackeyed susan,

I appreciate the budget problem (I do work in a school myself) but any school which was really clued up about synthetic phonics teaching (i.e current govt guidance since 2007) would have made an attempt to replace their Look & Say reading schemes and would know that using them is a pretty futile exercise as they are designed to support a completely different teaching method.

P.S. I also appreciate that there is immense pressure from pushy parents for children to be given 'reading books' almost from the moment they walk through the school doors for the first time.

We had the same experience with ds1. Although he couldn't read before school he picked it up bizarrely quickly, but school seemed totally unable to cope with this and he crawled through book bands in reception. After weeks of feeling frustrated he chose books from our local library. He finished reception on level 5 books (green) and only got a 7 for reading on his EYFS, but scored 2a on various reading comprehension SAT papers at the start of year 1 as luckily his year 1 teacher had realised that he was a great reader. He went up 7 reading levels. (Reception teacher had also completely missed that he was good at numeracy, and this too was resolved in year 1).
My dd is now in reception and i will do the same with her. I sound a bit bitter because i am, and thank goodness for his year 1 teacher who bothered to get to know my ds.

I am happy to do my own thing with my DS at home. The things he learns at school re-enforce what he already knows and I do things in a different way to school. In my son's class they buddy children with different abilities together to do exercises.

Your child is a more able reader than his school reading books suggest and I understand your frustration. MY DS's learning record is for school and home reading books and current interests. I would write that he has read 'Green Eggs and Ham' on his own/ picked x library book/ enjoys stories about y.

Many schools make children read every reading book.

I don't understand this - for the parents of good readers it must be very frustrating.

I would now advise that people ask about this when they look round schools. Our nearest school - where are dds go - suits the book to the child (think oldest dd only read about 20 reading books) but the next one along made the children read everyone. How dull!