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!

I don't disagree, sospanfach, but it is the dreaded time factor. In an ideal world yes I would love to work individually with my pupils more frequently but it is just not feasible. Or if only school budgets weren't so tight we could employ an additional trained teacher for afternoon reading so the class teacher can still teach the whole class without feeling guilty. I do feel really stretched to teach the required curriculum and still get the reading done (even when most of it is guided reading).

"Reception teachers' experience of assessing reading devt at DC's school: 19 years of listening to every child, every single day" how on earth did she find the time to do that?

I'm not sayingt h teacher is not doing loads of reading activities with class, some of thqtnill be one to one, some will be guided reading, some will be whole class activities.... But the reading practice, I still think, is something for parents, volunteers, whoever, to do. Just like hours behind the wheel with your dad in the passenger seat between driving lessons.

True, extremely true. There is little time for teachers to have the freedom to listen to the children individually now, since the curriculum is so extensive (some would say invasive) and since admin takes up a large proportion of your time

AbigalS - LOL at the multitasking.

Zeph - Yes, good points. The 'choosing' exercise is such nonsense. And very stressful.

I didn't know about the detailed assessments for individual children. How often do they do these and how long does each take?

Recently at a parents' evening, the teacher said DD needs to practise cutting with scissors. In real life, she spends hours and hours with scissors, cutting out paper and fabric. If she was on Mastermind cutting-out would be her specialist subject.

Seeker, we have been very lucky, with a reception class of just 10 children (8 when DS went through it) and very experienced TA there too. I imagine it must be very difficult for someone with 30 children in the class.

So, stillsquiffy, your child's teacher has never had more than 10 in her class for 19 years?

I would say that reading to every child individually is inefficient use of a teacher's time.

Where I teach, from mid-Year 1 onwards, the majority of reading is done as 'guided reading' - small groups of children working together on the same text with a teacher, working on a specific objective (e.g. use of voices or expression or comprehension or using an index etc). This is done once a week for every child - so every child works on their reading, on a very specific objective (rather than just 'hearing reading') once a week.

In addition, children who need it (in my Year 3 class that is the half of the class on the SEN register) are allocated individual reading time with a TA. As TAs only work with the class as a whole for 2 hours a day, for maths and literacy, and spend the rest of the time working 1 to 1 or with small groups of SEN children, they have the time and expertise to do this. They also work on individual targets, particularly 'decoding' skills, and discuss punctuation, basic comprehension, understanding of different types of book etc. Many of these children have no literate adult at home so this daily reading time is vital for them.

Other children read to a volunteer helper 1 or 2x per week - and this is much more on a 'hearing readers' than a 'focus on a specific target' activity.

A balanace of weekly group reading with a teacher, daily reading with a TA for those who need it, and at least once weekly with a volunteer helper for 'general' readers seems to me to balance teacher time with need for the children to rehearse reading in a purposeful way rather than a quick gabble to a half-listening teacher or TA who is also supervising the rest of the class.

Yes it makes absolute sense that guided reading in groups is more effective and efficient in terms of teaching and assessment.

I think perhaps the problem is that what parents see in the book bag is a reading book in many cases changed only once a week and a reading record book containing weekly comments from parent helpers, which on its own doesn't look great. As we don't see the physical evidence of what happens in the guided reading groups it's not always obvious how much work is going on there.

Ah, we always write in the reading diary about guided reading as well, including the target we worked on. I can understand that if that doesn't happen, then the parent might feel that reading isn't happening...

Seeker - the absolute limit any year is 14 in reception, then 16 for Year 1 and up.

As I said, we are very lucky, and I know that DS wouldn't have progressed as far as he has without the daily 1:1 reading that still continues now (albeit only for those like DS who need it - other children now read in group settings as part of class discussions around topics) It makes me very biased of course because I have seen quite clearly the benefits of focused reading with teachers who have had the experience and the skills to pull out the best in children like my DS.

I know that we are lucky because logistically it is easier to arrange teacher-led reading in a small class setting, but even in a class of 30 I imagine that a teacher could manage 5 minutes per child per week (4 mins reading, 1 min note-taking or whatever). It would mean that for the first 30 minutes of each day (or whenever) the TA would lead the class. Then you could put in place anyone to do the rest of the reading practice, I agree.

It will only make a difference to children like mine who then get spotted quickly and supported, but the benefits of early intervention yield remarkable results and can make the difference to whether kids with dyspraxia, dyslexia, optical sensitivity, etc can continue to thrive or start to fall back. I read in some of the literature we have been given by the ed pysch that over 75% of children who read poorly at age 9 will never catch up in terms of academic progress, across the board.

Reading is an aspect of learning so fundamental that IMO it needs to be monitored by those best qualified to do the job. What other aspect of early years teaching is as important?

I am a reading helper at my ds's school. I had some training first. I am able to pass comments on to the teacher about a child's progress, whether they need to go up or down a level etc... My son is in year 2 in an International School where many of the Kids are not native English speakers. The reading of most of them is just amazing and does not seem to have suffered by the teacher not reading with them so often.

I remember having reading tests with my teacher every month- in front of the whole class. I always did fine but some of the other kids were humiliated because their reading level was not where it should have been. Things are much better now.

Sadly the reality is that many parents do not read with or to their DC.

On a recent thread it was very clear that many parents are not able to do so/refused to do so for all manner of reasons.
And it was also clear that many parents are not keen at all on volunteers as they feel they are not expert enough.

I should say that my own DC were heard reading by a teacher or TA every single day. I don't know if this was important or not. But the whole class learned to learn absurdly quickly.

learned to read, I mean.

My DD has read to a class teacher, or a teaching assistant, approximately 3 times since she joined the school just over a year ago.

There's an unhealthy over-reliance on voluteers at my children's primary school. DD is verbally very able and well behaved and volunteers hearing her read: 'read p3 - p5 smiley-face-emoticon' are obfuscating the fact that she's struggling.

I'm not a teacher but I would have thought that phonics and guided reading lessons provided most reading instruction. The teacher or TA should hear the child sometimes so they know whether or not the child's reading level is appropriate but other than that I think that the reading done at home with me has made a bigger impact. (Before I'm told off, I know that not all children have an adult who reads with them)

If my children could have the teacher to themselves for 5-10 minutes a week I'd prefer attention in their weakest areas. As a parent it seems as though reading gets a lot more focus than writing and my children would benefit more from someone casting a critical eye at their writing than reading.

Seeker surely listening to children read when they are progressing well is not great use of teachers time but what about those who are struggling?

My DS was most of the way through year1 when his teacher realised he was 'guessing' and remembering not reading. Would assume this would be masked even more in 'guided reading'.

How can teacher know their progress if they don't hear them read?

do you think parent helpers don't feed back to teachers? i was always asked if I thought anyone needed moving levels?

I am sure helpers do feed back to the teachers.

I am equally sure they are not trained to tell the difference between ADHD and laziness, nor the difference between dyslexia and optical sensitivity, nor the difference between dyspraxia and inattention.

Had I ever been asked to comment on my son pre diagnosis I would have said 'when he tries he's ok, but he just won't sit still and he just makes errors because he's careless, and he just doesn't like reading and is pretty bored with Chip and Kipper - maybe if we got some books on dinosaurs that would help'. Had it been just me monitoring his reading he would still not have a dx. It took someone experienced to work out what was wrong and get the SENCO in quickly.

I really am struggling to see what is the most important aspect of being an early years teacher if it isn't ensuring that children can read and - assuming that is one of the most important aspects - that it would be appropriate to outsource it to people who are untrained, whilst the teacher does 'something else'

squiffy- I doubt most teachers would either.that is why there are experts .Also many volunteers will have at least as much experience of hearing children read as the teacher.We have several OAPs in our school who have been hearing 30 readers a week for many many years.

But why offload the most important aspect of early years' teaching?

Do your lovely OAPs actually know what (for example) dyspraxia is? Great that you have an army of volounteers, but no amount of good intentions can remove the necessity that the teacher be very closely involved in listening to the children at the early stages.

The thread title says it all "Listening to children is not a good use of a teacher's time" I just don't get it

The early years and KS1 teachers should be well aware of the children's reading ability through their daily phonics lessons, which should involve continuous assessments. This precludes the need for 1:1 reading. Guided reading once or twice a week will address comprehension and vocabulary, as will all other work with written texts throughout the curriculum.

I'm not saying hearing readers is a bad StillSquiffy, but we are not just doing any old "other things" as volunteers hear readers (if only I was so lucky as to have volunteers ) The arguement is that teachers have a finite number of hours contact with the children and a huge curriculum that they have to teacher, so on average hearing each child for ten minutes means four hours and fifty minutes where the other children do not have access to any teaching. That is the issue. If we could have more staff or only teach a restricted curriculum teachers could then hear each child read several times a week. In balance I can't believe many parents would take the positive of having their child read, say, once a week to the teacher, with the negative of their child having no serious learning and no teacher input for all the time the other 29 children read to the teacher.

Hearing 30 children read for 10 minutes once a week means that the equivalent of one full day is spent just hearing readers (not actually teaching). I like to hear readers but try to do it at times outside teaching (before school/lunch break)

mrz Hearing readers is teaching, no? Don't you need to check regularly that what you're teaching is being absorbed?