potential issue with yr1 teacher- can someone tell me what is normal

[hettie]

So... dc appears to be doing ok in yr1. Had a 10 min parent teacher meeting before half term and Dc's teacher asked to practice writing, learn key words and try and read every day... all well and good. Since then several things make me worry that the teacher is not really very on the ball..
Since sep (ie start of year) his reading record only has 6 entries from school, 2 of these appear to be from a 'helper' or TA (different hand writing), is this a normal number of occasions for his teacher to have heard him read?
His reading books are changed weekly (ish), as far as I can work out he gets to choose when he can change them. BUT.... this is 'overseen' by another child in the class. I queried this with the teacher (as dc had told me he couldn't change his book as X child had been away) and the teacher suggested it was fine as (other) dc was only writing down the book, not selecting it. I have reservations about this system- why has this particular dc ended up with this 'task' what the hell is that doing for classroom dynamics etc..... What do others think?
Lastly, poor dc has been gamely learning the key words, but this has not been acknowledged in any way by the teacher- I suspect partly because he doesn't read the reading record (which I understand is where we are supposed to record it).
Dc has recently come home saying that it is not fair that he never get to read to the teacher when others do . Of course I take this with a pinch of salt, it may be that he gets that opportunity lots.....
I'd really appreciate some feedback on how normal/useful this teachers approach is before I make an approach to them.

I can understand why you are concerned that your son's reading may not be effectively monitored by his current teacher given your background.

mmme- I think (based on what everyone has said) it's a case of wait and see. If problems arise (as I say at the moment, from what I understand he is fine/average) then I'll have to find out what's going on/encourage closer monitoring.

I'm sure he is fine but I can also see why you are concerned given your problems were not picked up at school.

Well IQ profile can be odd (?odd? in the sense of deviating from the usual), mine is not usual- in that it spikes, most things in the top 0.3 centile, certain things (pertaining to particular aspects of working memory) in the lower 30th centile. My working memory problems are mostly related to phonological working memory, so hearing sounds (phonic ones or otherwise) and relating them to images on a page (or vice versa) is particularly problematic for me. So I can see/read ?ae? , but I struggle to remember the sound that goes with it. In the same way that I can?t tell you what 9x8 is (and this is despite being able to do multivariate statistical analysis) the bit of my brain that needs to remember the numbers 9 and 8 whilst I carry out the ?calculation? (ie remember what it is you asked me to do with the numbers) is sadly AWOL. I am fairly sure I mostly learnt to read by recognising whole words- not memorising them, but their visual shape, I have a ridiculous capacity to be able to store visual traces of information that I can index/relate to other information

Oh my days Hettie, you've just described my 5 year old son to a tea! His SALT has just diagnosed phonological processing difficulties. He forgets common words but can describe the item that he wants the word for ie them brown round things for meatballs. He's struggling with reading a lot and my sister recently said she thinks he recognises the shape of things rather than the letters/word. He also forgets what he's started spelling/adding and ends up just randomly guessing!

He also doesn't relate the letter sounds to the letter only the letter name.

Lots of children use letter names if they have been taught them before they are secure with sounds.

He's really weak with sounds, bless him.