Refusing to put dc on next reading level or even assess

[Blueschool]

Dc in in year 2. Has been on same reading level since September.

My dc may not be good at a lot at school, but reading is dc strong point. Not the top of class but quite advanced. Not just my opinion but her previous teachers and helpers.

Her current level is not a challenge anymore. Mentioned this weeks ago. Given a huge list basically telling me why dc is a crap reader in teachers opinion. Very surprised as one area always was praised on reading.

Took it on chin and we worked hard to resolve the issues like "not enough expression".

Dc reading is just fine. I can not find not fault.

My comment I wrote last week was the "book was not a challenge". Teacher took a whole page up in dd reading record to again tell me how crap dc is.

I felt the comments were utterly unfair and do not reflect reality at all. She also told me I could buy books to read at home! Very unfair assumption dc reads for pleasure all the time and has 100+ at home.

She said IF she wants she will assess her after Christmas she will.

My issues are

• I thought parents and teachers were meant to be in partnership with education. How is this a partnership?

• IF dc is genuinely reading badly at school WHY? Why is there such a difference? Why is her educational environment not making her feel confident and supported to show her real abilty?

• Another parent has told me they have had similar issues as the teacher gets herself stressed. Im sorry, but holding a child back because you are stressed is quite something.

What should I do?

Why on earth did they say "but what would they do?" If children are capable of all these things? Feenie said it, I can't remember who else said it. You made it sound like they'd all melt or waste time without a teacher's attention.

"If they can achieve quite complex work as you have described above, quite independently, what's the beef? Why are people saying "but what would they do?" and wringing their hands?"

I don't do guided reading so my reply is totally neutral but I would suggest there is a huge difference in expecting a child to work independently on a task for 25 mins to expecting them to stay on task for hours it would take to hear every child 1-1.

19.20.26

In that case teacher I believed - wrongly - that you were responding to my point. I askekd why no teacher's immediate reaction - about Blueschool's daughter's book - was something like this

"Yes that does seem rather low, unless she has any specific reading difficulties she could very well be bored and dispirited by that, and would responding to something more interesting or challenging"

Its become clear that diffrent schools do it diffrenet its not standardised.

That over the years things have changed-guess curruculum lead tight on time.

Diffrent teachers schools will have different ability groups.
In our leafy suberb most of year 2s at this stage are ort 6+

It does seem unfair not every teacher has same amount of help tas. ect.

polka when you taught did you have a ta?

im confused by tas as some have qualifications others dont is there no required training /standard for them?

Also came across a higher level ta who teaches dd one afternoon a week during personal planning time. in old school the teacher had 1afternoon off and think they had floatin teacher last year and this year hired sports and music teachers.

Also teachers-im confused what tas roles are?
How you veiw them? do they make life easier?
one freind makes it sound like shes there to clean the paintbrushes;

All the guided reading and extra intervention last year year 1-seemed to be tas. Dd was bottom table for numercay and literacy and was always ta that would be helping and teacher would be on middle/higher ability kids.maybe it was school specific.

Are tas to be trusted to do some sort of activity with kids if teachers in room doing 1-1 reading? As we get the do you want the ta teaching! Yet they seem to be integral to doin lot of group work with those struggling seems contradiction.

Either they unqualified not to be trusted.
Or they very important part of teachers day?

dd did lead me to believe she did independant work 1st term of year 2 as she said she couldent speak to teacher when she was reading even if she was stuck.

How do indendants/pre pre preps do their reading?

I guess its hard for parents as all they see as child moves up is being less supported

as preschool-small ration child -adults.
recpetion-lot more support /play.
but then year 1/2 can be big shock suddenly teh works harder, theres less support, expectations are higher it can be overwhelming for child and parent to make that transition many parents I know have no idea their childs not being heard by the teacher.

Maybe teacher target of once a month would a good idea as would avoid situation of op being level x sept then still x in nearly december..

I know schools are busy and under pressure.
Just think it needs rethink do les but do it well embed the core skills of number, reading and writing.

Have no child leaving infants unable to read and write and then not have secondries saying they come ti us unable to read and they leave with rubbish qualifications.

Also preschool question-but parents-how do you know which parents read at home or not? do you as teachers ask them? ask the child? do all parents write in the book?

How do you target the 1-1 if not special needs?

Lots of people dont use public libaries-maybe they shut don maybe they not big readers themselves and some schools are very prescriptive /restructive books dd said she rarly saw her old school libary.

Surly all kids deserve a little one to one time.

Its why I worried about dd she as in middle never the one targeted with needed specific help, the ones who were getting the help were then ahead of her was mad situation.

Also point one poster made about her dd who had support last year was removed then this year is struggling and falling behind again sometimes its not a senco issue its a confidence/personality of that child that means they sometimes need more attention as in year 2 they still young.

My understanding was theat the OP was commenting that Purple Level was not challenging her daughter - not that she had a particularly unchallenging book today. Teachers of around that age group will have a fairly wide experience of what a Purple book involves and so are likely to respond to the general 'band' comment rather than diving into the specifics of one text.

Thanks Isabella, I did see that earlier. I referred to the fact that at that level I would assume the classes have a teaching assistant (I am right in your case I think) but that's not a safe assumption, so opportunity for one to one reading. It should be a priority.

So is that text typical or not? Or is it particularly easy?

"I don't do guided reading so my reply is totally neutral but I would suggest there is a huge difference in expecting a child to work independently on a task for 25 mins to expecting them to stay on task for hours it would take to hear every child 1-1. "

But they don't do every child guided reading back to back over hours. Why would they have to do one to one back to back for hours?

Brycie, as I say, all our tschool-wide tracking data says that reading progress has vastly accelerated since properly planned guided reading was implemented instead of hasty 1 to 1 for every child.

What is the data that you are drawing on in your assertion that progress would be better from 5 minute 1 to 1 sessions?

I would say that decoding those particular words is easy. However, from my knowledge of the other Happy Families books, there is a need for inference and deducation in understanding some of the [deadpan] hunour and in 'reading between the lines' to understand what is really going on as this is not always spelt out in the text. They would be good books to address particular objectives around those points, but less so for assessing 'decoding skills'. Which is why reading a range of books at any level, to add to a wide range of un-levelled books inside and outside school, is critical.

(Equally, the book I read with my pupil was great for assessing decoding, and for understanding the features of a non-fiction text, but would have been wholly useless for exploring characters or predicting alternative endings!)

Maybe properly planned one-to-one, instead of hasty one to one, would have had the same or better results than properly planned guided reading.

I still don't understand why teachers are saying "but what would they do" when they know children are capable of complex independent work for half an hour.

Shouldn't that be "some children are capable of complex independent work for half an hour?"

Children indeed are capable of independent work for half an hour, which would allow me to listen to 3 children read, half an hour a day would get through 15, the rest would have to wait for another week. As it is, I listen to every child read once a week in guided reading, a volunteer listens to all the children read independently once a week, my TA teaches reading skills and listen to low ability readers twice a week for each of 6-8 children. I know which I prefer.

I suppose it depends on the class, but one teacher who had said "but what would they do?" then said that all of her class does this

"the other groups have tasks which address different objectives which fall within what teachers call 'reading' but which don't necessarily fall within the 'layman's definition' of that word. So for example one group might be doing a comprehension exercise. Another might be completing a character description at some level. A third might be showing alternative story endings on a plan. Or, for example, where objectives relate to non-fiction, one group might be taking notes from an online text, another might be highlighting specific features of an information text, a third might be creating their own glossary using dictionaries. "

She didn't say there were some who couldn't and so she had to interrupt her guided reading to manage them

Why can't you have 30 mins am and 30 mins pm

Brycie 'Maybe properly planned one-to-one, instead of hasty one to one, would have had the same or better results than properly planned guided reading. '

'Maybe' - ah, so you've no evidence, then??

My DC's school used to hear every child in KS1 read every single day - the HT was so proud of this. Parents loved it.

TAs now work in a totally different way, they no longer spend most of their day listening to readers, and results have shot up.......

I sometimes wonder if it's the fact that we, as parents, have so much input with the reading and information regarding levels that we get so exasperated about it.

If say maths had colour levels and we all knew where our dc was at, how that compared to their friends and what they had to do to go up, we'd be complaining about that too. But as it is, we're unaware most of the time.

Brycie how long do you think it would take to hear one child read a book 1-1?

The reason that I don't have to stop my reading to manage them (and if I do, it's 1 minute out of a group's 25-30, not 1 minute out of a child's precious 5) is because the guided reading sessions and the independent tasks are inextricably linked. I couldn't ask the children to do the independent tasks I set without the guided group that sets them up to do them - in terms if having read the text, having already started to think about characters, in terms of simply having set up and explained the task.

'Properly planned 1 to 1' - ie 1 to 1 with a proper structure and teaching objectives and all the things done in guided reading - would probably take about 10-15 minutes per child (which is what I spend with my 1 to 1 pupils). So yet more time for the rest of the class to occupy themselves.

However, do come back when you have proper evidence to support your assertions...

"Why can't you have 30 mins am and 30 mins pm" afternoons are generally shorter than mornings - in my school I have 3hours teaching time am and only 2hours pm

Read 'at least 10-15 minutes'.

The parent volunteers at my DC school are only allowed to go in and read with kids in the afternoon as the morning is spent with more structured lessons ie phonics and numeracy...

Which then limits the amount of kids we can read with. I would love to read with the kids that get very little support at home (one child after 5mins managed to read the word C A T last week, he was soooo proud I nearly cried ) but all the kids are desperate to read with me and other volunteers so why shouldn't they have a turn even if they are supported at home or not???