Forced baby behaviour?

[learnandsay]

Are simplistic phonics books good, bad or neutral? If a Reception child can already read Ladybird stories such as Three Little Pigs, Where the Wild Things Are, Dr Seuss, etc, etc, etc but they're bringing home apparently the whole ORT 1+ range comprising of nothing but CVC words which present no challenge and no learning opportunity either, is reading them:

(1) a waste of time, reading time is precious, doesn't it make more sense to spend it on reading words which present a learning opportunity?

(2) potentially leading towards reading becoming uninteresting

(3) promoting ignorance - if the child can read the names of countries already the child could be reading sentences like: The Nile is the longest river in the world, instead of sentences like Dot got a pot and Bot got Dot's pot. Pat pat pat, tap tap tap.

In summary, would the time be better spent reading something useful?

Oaty, that may even be true. But AMIS mostly refers to other families in that post and that is not my concern. My concern is for my daughter.

Lordy, I give up!

The other 25 children in the class are irrelevant to me.

I was finding this thread hilarious in the way that only a MN thread on reception reading could be, until I read this sentence which makes me feel very sad.

Bless, Rose, it's a rhetorical response to the posting above it. It's not a reflection of my emotional view of my daughter's classmates.

FYI, I find 'bless' one of the most inane turns on phrase on the planet.

Is this not a reflection of your emotional view of your daughter's classmates either then?

But AMIS mostly refers to other families in that post and that is not my concern. My concern is for my daughter

To be perfectly honest, if you are commenting about the blurb on the back of the book the teacher will just think 'oh FFS' and probably make a judgement that you are unhelpful and passive aggressive. Which sounds like it might be spot on. In your shoes I would write 'read this easily' and get on with reading other fun books at home. They will be assessing her reading after half term and they have told you this. If, at that stage, she is still getting books that are too easy, make an appointment with the teacher and ask her about it nicely. I don't know why you would want to make your child's teacher think that you're a loon, I really don't.

The blurb contains words like Oxford, retell, decode and so on. My daughter can sometimes read these words and sometimes she can't. But every time she tries she learns something new. Next time she comes across the words she can often read them. That's what I write. (ie she's learning to read more complex words.) There's nothing loony about it.

You know, if she can read the school book in two minutes flat, I'd just let her do that, be thankful, and go and do something more interesting for the rest of the day. You have a lot of school-child-dom still to come, and this (for your family) is a doddle. Be glad!

Just read the bit about the publishing blurb and am back to hysterical laughter at this thread...

But your daughter's going to have her reading assessed in a matter of weeks and will then presumably be given something more suitable. She's not going to forget how to read in the mean time! Just wait and see what happens when she's been assessed. And what is the point of reading the blurb? It must be deathly dull. If she (not you) doesn't want to read the easy books, then write in the diary 'DD did not want to read this' and send it back. Reading the blurb instead of the books is just being deliberately difficult. And yes, it sounds utterly mad to me. Sorry, but it does.

Do you think being able to read words like "Oxford" is more important than getting a feel for rhyming words, or for thinking ahead on where the story might go next, or adding expression to your reading voice? You seem to have a very narrow view of what your daughter ought to be being taught by the school. Perhaps you might like to think about whether trained teachers might actually have some insight about the processes of learning to read which are not directly about being able to read out every word in turn?

She is learning new things when she explores books where she can read out every word without any difficulty. You are focussing on a very narrow part of reading - yes, she can no doubt race ahead of the others, but that doesn't mean she's going to reach some destination ahead of everyone else and win a prize. And by racing ahead she hasn't seen any of the scenery, or learned anything about the journey beyond what the road directly in front of her looks like.

Hi OP

I also read many of your earlier threads, and still think that the key thing is that you work with the school. They are not trying to catch you out, or trip you up.

I use the reading record to record what the DSs have read, but also to mention when they are finding a level too easy, or they particularly enjoyed a book, or when the book triggered a discussion about something.

So, when DS2 (Year 1) came home with a book that was a level lower than his last couple of books (school have their own grading with various schemes mixed up), and read it in five mins, but loved it, I said that he read it fluently, quickly, but enjoyed it and could we have the rest of that series in one go. Which we then got the next evening to read over the weekend.

In your position, I would read the book enthusiastically together, talk around the story, look for rhymes etc and even discuss possible sequels. Then read your own home book, and write in the reading record all of the above.

I know many people hate scheme books, but they are structured in a certain way, introducing punctuation, themes etc. There is far more to reading than knowing the words... (particularly thinking of my 8 year old, who is a fantastic reader, but who struggles to put himself of the characters when doing comprehension...have actually been sitting him down with DS2's books to discuss the characters of Chip, Kipper etc...)

We're not reading the blurb instead of the books, we're reading both and commenting that we've read both. We're also commenting on what she's learning, finding difficult, etc. The content of the books is too simple to allow this, so at the moment it can only be done with supplementary sentences taken from the blurb.

Incidentally, in regard to rhyming, of course my daughter loves rhyming but she gets none of it from ORT 1+. She gets it from reading Michael Rosen poems to me. Of course she reads widely away from the ORT 1+ books. But all of her useful reading practice comes from non-scheme books.

I hadn't thought about it in terms of hating scheme books -- I've seen some Heineneman scheme books which I thought were great. So it's probably not scheme books that I hate it's probably just these books.

Thank god you're not a parent of a child in my class. Do you work full time? You seem to have a lot of time to worry about this. It's the beginning of your education journey. Enjoy it ffs. Time to get stressed much later!!!!

Let her read the books the school provide; then move onto other preferred books which you provide yourself.

Child then continues to be hot housed learn at your preferred rate, so there is no problem, really.
(Except the lack of public recognition of your mini genius).

(Don't forget to get you daughter to read the book's ISBN number and the copyright statement; you should be able to squeeze a comment out of those.)

It actually says in the front cover of the ORT 1+ books for parents to read the blurb in the back cover with their child. I guess no one else noticed from the looks of this thread.

If you feel unable to write in your child's reading record then get your child to comment every day.eg.
I read this book with mummy today
This book made me laugh
I like this book because the daddy fell in the mud
This book made me think about my holiday to the seaside.
I liked the bit where....
etc etc etc
This way you are encouraging your child to evaluate each book, write for an audience and give constructive feedback.
And of course this will help equip her with the skills to write comments in the reading diary when she is a mummy ;)

tiny, that's a great idea, thanks.

Op I can sort of see where you're coming from as I found myself very interested in ds1's reading progress in YR. But with the benefit of hindsight, it's not a biggie. I now write ds2 recited the whole thing in a monotone, only pausing for breath at the end of each page. I imagine your reading diary antics cause some hilarity in the staffroom. Chill a bit. Save your fire for Y2, say, when you can start posting for real in the eleven plus forums.

I think I'll do as tiny suggests.

I hope the staff have read the instructions in the books they send home. That's what they say.

learnandsay is correct what other children in the class are doing has no bearing on her child and the teacher should not dish books out on mass. She should be allocating books at an appropriate level for each child.

learnandsay are you expected to provide a detailed comment or would a standard "read well" be acceptable ...

Um, the comments haven't been defined save but to limit them to school books. The teacher did once comment stretch her vocabulary, which is partly what I am doing.

But I think economising on space inside the diary is an issue which could be catered for admirably by tiny's suggestion of having my daughter write the comments. I think that's the answer.

Fab reading? Well done? Brilliant? You are a star? Just thinking of some of the things parents write in my class ... but mrz is right, you do need to speak to the teacher if the level of books is wholly inappropriate. If your child is reading at the level you say with texts that are new to her without adult support then she needs to have a reading age test and be put on an appropriate level of book.