Primary teachers (YR) - if you had a child in no mans land.......

[Looksgoodingravy]

Basically ds is in YR and his Reception teacher spoke to me a few weeks ago and told me that she was going to speak to the Y1 teacher about the possibility of moving ds to her guided reading group as ds was slightly ahead of the reading group in YR. PE yesterday and just before I was about to leave I remembered this and asked her what the outcome was, was told that Y1 reading group were at a slightly higher level and they had come to the conclusion that they would leave ds in his current guided reading group. She also said that once ds moves into Y1 in September it would probably be more evident of where he was with regards to guided reading and that they would mix him with various groups then (mixed Y1/Y2 class) another 7 months to go for this though.

What's my point..well it just seems like ds is in no mans land at the moment and I don't want it to have a negative impact on him, I would prefer him to be at a lower level than what he is capable of I suppose rather than losing confidence in a higher level group.

My question is what would you do if my ds was in your class.

If he doesn't fit in with a group I would have thought hearing him read individually would be the answer rather than moving him into Y1... not a GR fan

Thanks mrz, if I'm honest I'm not completely sure what guided reading is all about, I know it's certain groups of children reading but don't know how it works really, the teacher actually approached me about it, found it odd then that it was then not followed up. Can I ask why you're not a fan?

I personally like to work with individual children in reception rather than try to create groups of children who have different needs.

not a teacher but hope you will allow me to respond.

I do individual reading with the children in YR at our school, they each get 10 minutes. there are children learning to blend 2 letters together and there are children that can confidently read paragraphs of stories they haven't read before.

IMO (which comes from much less experience than Mrz) I too would be asking / encouraging the individual reading to be where he is encouraged to spread his wings.

Makes sense, thank you, there is only 15 children in this class, there is a TA and parent helpers who also listen to ds as an individual (evidence in reading book) but it seems the teacher listens to them in their guided reading groups and not on an individual basis.

I've never actually thought to ask but since I've seen this thread, what exactly is group reading?

DD has it about once a week/fortnight, but she has lots of individual reading sessions too.

Thanks NeverKnowingly, I'm encouraging ds at home as much as possible too and he's doing great, I just wasn't fully aware of how these guided reading groups worked and how it would affect ds in the grand scheme of things.

Fuzzpig, I'm glad it's not just me

I really don't mind them doing group reading as long as the children are getting the one to one time as well. One of the things our YR teacher uses the guided time for is developing the understanding of the story not just saying the words.

They read a few bits each then discuss what they have read. Not sure how it works with other ages.

We discussed at parents night that DS2 is on BB4 on the schools reading scheme and the most able groups reading is at BB2 and in the end I agreed with her. DS2 loves reading, and sometimes doing something too easy for a short time a day isn't going to damage him, it will just build his belief in his ability to read.

It is far easier to develop the understanding of the story working individually IMHO and to teach new skills appropriate to the child.

That makes sense Never Knowingly, my old brain often visualises these guided reading groups as a one hour lesson sat at desks and ds getting nothing out of it where as in reality it's totally different and if it's for a short time then it isn't going to make a vast difference. You can tell it's been a while since I was at school

My DS is heard individually at the moment as noone at same level- generally I think they are heard in twos. He enjoys it .

DD's group reading comments in her book are normally something like "DD contributed lots of ideas about the story" and "DD pointed out lots of phonemes" - I wonder if they are a polite way of saying "DD wouldn't shut up" :o

I was told DS2 in reception was at the top of his Y1 reading group but there was too big a gap for him to go up to the next one. I didn't have a problem with that, as he is heard reading individually too. Within a couple of weeks his teacher had tried him in the next group up and he was fine, so you might find they change their mind unexpectedly.