Would you mention to the R teacher that your child could already read?

[Iamnotminterested]

And I know that what constitutes reading and 'reading' differs enormously, but DC has a good grasp of phonics, can sound out and read four and five letter words and understands the use of capital letter, full stops, exclamation marks and question marks. Her school starts everyone on the same book level - would you say anything or wait for them to say something?

I told the teacher at the start, who didnt believe me. Dds first report came back, saying she was struggling with basic stuff, so i asked my teacher friends to give me honest opinions and they all agreed that dd was actually exceeding the targets, so i had to o the really mbarrassng thing of saying something at the parents evening.

It turned out that they had only been asking dd to do the stuff they thought she wouldnt be able to o... Eg 'can you manage to sound out c-a-t?' so dd was going along with the rest of the group. I suppose if someone asked me to do that i would be confused...

Anyway, the teacher kind of 'stalked' dd for a couple of days, and saw that, when thy assummed she was looking at pictures in books, she was actually reading them silently.

DD is doing the phonic sessions with the other children, which I am absolutely happy for her to do, I don't expect any difference with regard to this as it's so important for spelling.

But...maths. Hmm. She came home with a curriculum leaflet for this term on Monday and I had a look at the targets and they are all things that she could do a year ago eg. count accurately up to 10, however DD is not the sort of child to say me, me I can already do this so we will carry on at her level at home and see how it goes.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts.

I know what you mean- DS1 came home from school yesterday and said "Mummy you sent me to the wrong place- its not school its nursery!" I'm not particularly worried about that and he had a great big smile on his face so I know he's having a super time which is really important. They have the targets for Year R on the wall e.g. know at least half of year R keywords (he knows them all already and has done for sometime plus knows and good proportion of year 1 and 2 words) I agree the phonics is really important and I think its good for him to have the basics reinforced particularly as you say for spelling reasons. He is going to get his first book tonight so we will see what he comes out with. Again I won't be particularly concerned if its fairly basic as I know they are getting to grips with him and it will give him sometime to get his confidence up at school. The teacher is absolutely lovely and seems to be getting to know him already and we are only Day 4.
My plan is to see how we can extend things at home as well e.g. he can read all high frequency words but is less keen on writing things down although his pencil control and letter formation is very good so I will perhaps see if I can get him spelling high frequency words. Also I play piano myself and am thinking about starting to teach him a bit so he is extend in other ways.
Despite his nursery comment he thinks school and his teacher are fantastic at the moment to the extent that he was up and dressed in his uniform with shoes on before 6 am this morning and came bouncing into my room announcing that it was time for me to get up and take him to school. He is just so happy to be there which is the most important thing at this stage.

DDchad her first day at reception today and she seems to have enjoyed it.

The teacher took my aside and said she will have a reading book for her next week, so will see what she is given.