Should a year one child be able to use an index?

[soandsosmummy]

Just that really. Got a note in DD's home book saying she needs to work on this at home as she's struggling with it in school. Quite happy to help her just surprised that she's expected to do this (she is my PFB and obviously I can't accept she'd have a problem with ANYTHING )

We teach contents and index pages in Year 1. Along with glossary, captions, labelling and headings, so I would think your dd just needs to practise using the index in books at home.

Great thanks. Practise it is then - she's been doing contents and glossary so not sure why I'm surprised by index. Everything seems so quick now I am sure I was still struggling with Village at Three Corners when I was DD's age

Yes DD has learnt this in yr 1. Good that the teacher has let you know.

It seems really early to me that after a year of play-based reception and a term in year one, she is expected to be able to do this. I suppose it depends on how complex the index, but normally to use an index you must have had to master alphabetical order. Are the other children in the class struggling with this? Are they all expected to work on this at home?

fairenuff - do you use particular types of books? had a look and most of mine with indexes are left from our degrees - its a bit unfair to expect DD to master vocab associated with 19th century Russian or Italian Renaissance History or advanced physics just in order to use the index. Obviously as she is very very clever this will not be a problem but it may take her a day or two Presumably there are books with simple indexes for use of children?

Go to the library! Plenty of simple non-fiction books in the children's section.

The ORT Floppy's phonics have some books with an index - DD had one about Robin Hood.

Maybe you can borrow a few from school?

The most obvious simple index available in most people's homes is in a recipe book. The only downside is they may contain words that are quite hard for small children to read - often in quite small print.

Great ideas thank you. they seem so obvious I can't understand why I didn't think of them myself

My reception DS2 comes home with non-fiction reading books that have indexes. This started at yellow band if I recall correctly. Lots of kids' books in the library will have indexes that are accessible for a Y1 child.

My y1 ds gets school reading scheme books with an index of about 10 -12 words. (ie enough to scan through rather than work out alphabetical order)

We use a variety of non-fiction books in the school library. There are lots of books aimed at KS1 readers which have simple contents and index pages.