Listening to children reading is not a good use of a teacher's time.

[seeker]

Honestly.

The children learn to read through all sorts of classroom activities. Reading aloud to an adult is only one small part of it, and one which can perfectly well be done by anyone who can read. So if you hear your child read every day, don't worry if he doesn't read to the teacher very often- he will be having lessons in all aspects of reading which he then practices at home with you, and in some schools on parent helpers, other volunteers, year 6s- anyone who will sit don with them for 5 minutes.

The teacher meanwhile is doing loads of other things- things which you need to be a trained teacher to do!

But parent helpers and year 6's aren't going to move them up the levels and be able to recognise when intevention is needed early on.

I agree that parents need to chill about this a bit though, they do seem to get anxious about it when it's cmpeletely unneccesary. I think teachers should be aiming to hear the children read individually at least twice every half term, but these things very much depend on the quality of the classroom assistants, and good lines of communication between volunteers, teacher and parents.

I disagree. I think that children need to read to their teacher occassionally. Many schools do group reading and the teacher works on improving comprehension as well as decoding.

Practicing reading at home is like driving practice and reading with the teacher is like a driving lesson. Children need both.

Well occasionally, I suppose. Once a half term would be ok.

seeker, what have you got against guided group reading? My son has had guided group reading once a week through out primary school.

I am struggling to see how a teacher can grasp who is behind, how good a childs grasp of phonics is and whether they are engaged with reading and therefore receiving the right books if they don't hear them read.

If a parent is not aware how a child is taught and doesn't know the phonics they will not be helping and guiding them correctly.

Guided reading is fine to support 1-1 reading but I would not be happy if this was the only reading practice that was done at school. BTW I do realise that reading directly from a book is not the only type of reading.

Besides what about all those children who don't get the opportunity to read at home? How are they going to progress?

How do you teach a child to read?

I thought it was by reading with them, encouraging them to go from left to right, to get the first sound, to get the blends, to sound out, to chunk etc etc. You have to pause, to praise, to end on a positive note.

Most parents don't know how to do all of that, certainly year 6's don't. Listening to children read and doing it properly not as simple as it seems.

From Reception onwards my ds [now year 2] very rarely read with his teacher but regularly read with Tas [who could change levels] or volunteers.
Now in year 2 he mainly reads on his own at school/ with a volunteer or through Guided reading. Others who need it/ working through reading scheme still get TA time with reading. Seems to work fine in our school.

Oh yes ds says he reads with year 5 and 6s too which he really enjoys.

Sorry, Seeker, but totally disagree with you on this one.

Could write lots more but the other posters have covered it all.

Reception teachers' experience of assessing reading devt at DC's school: 19 years of listening to every child, every single day. My experience of assessing reading devt: zilch.

Which is probably why it was she and not I who first identified his dyslexia....

Seeker - What are the "loads of other things that you need to be trained teacher to do"?

I'm not blaming teachers at all for this, but primary school teaching looks more like a career in logistics.

I totally agree about the value of individual reading. Yes teachers do need to hear them read their individual reading book occasionally. But if you do the maths: Teacher reads one-to-one for 10 minutes per child per week X 30 = 5 hours

Your child gets 10 minutes of uninterrupted teacher time ? great.
But your child then also has to have 4 hours and 50 minutes of independent activities. No adult support if they get stuck, activities that keep the noise level low so the teacher can hear the reader, so of limited educational value ? not so great.

Guided reading carousel of activities for non-reading groups that can be pitched for the separate groups ? best option for most weeks.

PS I don?t have a TA to do the reading or parent helpers as the majority of our parents wither work or have younger children. In my last school the TAs had specific jobs e.g. linked to children with specific learning or physical need so you couldn?t just assume because there is a TA attached to your class they can either hear readers or hold the class while the teacher hears them.

Yes, Swedes2, it can be about logistics. It can involve really complex organisation and my friend likened it to doing a contantly moving and changing jigsaw.

Agree.

A teacher hearing a child read once or twice a halfterm should be enough as far as I can see for assessment. Otherwise TA in school, parents at home.

The big problem with teachers not hearing children read is that they keep them on the same level for ages, not taking into account the progress that children have made (much of which may be home reading).

AbigailS My older sons used to read to their primary school teacher every day, or at least mostly every day. And they got kept in at break-time for extra help, if it was felt they were struggling/would benefit from abit of extra assistance. The teachers did seem to know their strengths and weaknesses. But them were the days when a teacher could have a cup of hot tea at her desk brought by the school secretary and perhaps didn't feel so in need of a break.

When did parents lose trust in teachers to the point that so many of us seem to think it's necessary/desirable to become education experts? (There are so many more interesting ways to spend time.) I'm quite certain my parents never fretted over my lack of punctuation or stagnated reading. It's happened very recently. When my now late teen sons were at primary school, I just let school get on with it and took my guidance from them. Now my youngest children are at primary school, I'm not feeling so secure. Teaching has changed a lot, and not for the better from what I'm seeing.

tbh when i hear 8 pr 9 year olds read aloud i am a bit shocked, there are techniques involved in reading aloud that they are not being taught, like the use of expression, tone, reading ahead of where you are speaking etc, they may beable to read, but they do it like robots.

Swedes2 - read this report if you want to learn more about the recent surge in parental anguish about the quality of schools.

Swedes2

That's a really interesting point. I'd love to know the answer - what's changed?

maybe it is a culture/class thing as when i was at school, and i am older then late teens, my mum was definitely interested in my education, and so were the parents of most of those around me, infact as a teenager/ late 20s when i heard some peoples parents didnt do these things i was shocked.

I'm not sure whether it's about losing trust in teachers exactly, but I do think it's an effect of the twin obsessions with choice and measurability that have been dominating just about everything over the past decade or so. Parents are now expected to choose their children's schools, rather than sending them to whichever is nearest, and in order to be able to make any sort of meaningful choice we have to have an opinion on how good or bad the available schools are. So many of us now feel obliged to pore over Ofsted reports and league tables, taking into account not only the headline results but factors such as numbers of kids with SENs, EFLs and free school meals to give us clues as to how to interpret the statistics. And by the time you've got as involved as that, and have read the reports indicating that your chosen (or more likely allocated) school does x well but y badly, it's hard to stand back and let them get on with it.

Meanwhile teachers' workloads have (as I understand it) been increased enormously by having to complete highly detailed assessments of each child in whatever particular format is prescribed by the Department of Education, which may be one of the reasons why they no longer have time to hear children read very often, which is rather ironic given that you would think that hearing them read would be a fairly crucial assessment tool in Reception/Y1.

Interesting! I would love to hear my class read individually more. It really gives me a chance to get to know them as people as well as addressing reading. But I fear things have changed even since Swedes2's eldest was at school. As a teacher I am on duty outside most playtimes, lunchtimes I do half of the session on lunchtime duty (SLT) and half clearing up / setting up my classroom for the afternoon's session or filling in th lastest piece of assessment paperwork the government has deemed will improve the quality of learning. I agree much has changed, but not all for the worse: I remember when I first started teaching I worked with a teacher that hear children read almost every day. Then I watched her "hear" two children, one standing each side of her as she sat at her desk. Each child read simultaneously from different books. Now I know us women can multi-task but ....!

I think it depends on how the teacher does it. Listening to a child read can be a very useful task to do, for a teacher and a TA. When a teacher listens to readers they are rarely just listening, they are often teaching at the same time.

ZephirineDrouhin - to my mind I think you have hit the nail on the head. My parents certainly had no choice about my schools (bar going private) and certainly just left the teachers to it without worrying had I made the sublevel progress in reading this term.

I think accoutablity is important, but it can get all too much sometimes.

As an aside I think teachers are better trained now - more is known about how the brain learns, learning styles, differentiation (not one sise fits all as in my school days) and how to support G&T, SEN, EAL, etc. I was not adequately taught how to teach reading at teacher training 20 + years ago, I learnt it on the job during INSET, and in independent study.

it's not helpful to just have 'anyone who can read' listening to your child, that is the same line of argument that says anyone who can speak another language will be good at teaching it. Proper teachers actually listen correctly, don't interrupt, give positive reinforcement and use recognised methods.

I don't like the idea of using older or more able students to do it seeker, they should be learning their own part of the curriculum, not being unpaid helpers to younger children. (It's a nice idea to teach the older ones to help the younger ones, but it shouldn't be a regular thing imo).