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?

Cassgate I completly agree with your second paragraph. If the teachers are relying soley on assessment in guided reading then of course this will be an inaccurate portrayal of a shy childs reading. All the child will be thinking is that they need to get this reading over with asap. Their voice will of course be monotone and comprehension poor, as their mind is in a different place than the story.

Hello OP
Take it up with KS 1 head or literacy co ordinator at the school.

I agree with a previous poster in that you may well look back in a year and wonder why you were so bothered about this. I found it exasperating and frustrating in reception year as they were slow to assess them and change books. But then when they did assess, they'd sometimes bump them up a few levels quite quickly or even skip a level. The teacher has said she'll assess after Xmas. That's what, six weeks away. Why not just wait? From the teacher's point of view, she really can't be putting dc up at their parent's request if she doesn't think they're ready. Fine to highlight it, but she doesn't agree. You could go further and complain but in the grand scheme of things you'll be causing friction with the teacher for what? So that your dd can read different books a few weeks earlier than she otherwise would have.

In a year or so's time your dc will have more than likely finished the reading scheme. Mine has. I now look back and think, actually it didn't matter one iota that they didn't move her up quite as quickly as I would have liked them to. In fact I now wish they hadn't moved her on quite so quickly because the books she is choosing to read from the school stock are way more boring than the reading scheme ones. Entire paperbacks about puppies getting lost.

Sorry if I sound harsh. Just hoping it helps.

Ecletible- I agree

I COMPLETELY AGREE with you. I agree that comprehension used to be (and in my dds private school still is) done separately with focused work on this area with special worksheets or passages of books that they HAVEN't read before. Why they have all these levels and concepts that the children are supposed to grasp from one 16 page crappy book I do not know. 'Inferring from the text' honestly it is enough to put kids off reading for life.

I have no issue with them testing reading comprehension.
But do it separate from their reading scheme as theres just not much to infer from a simle 10-15page ort book its using the wrong materials to test comprehension I reckon.

From what i can see is schools all follow same curriculum but all do so differently.

Plus when some of us reflect to many years ago our own childhoods it was very different.

How it seems to me is

condensing comprehension into reading books saves time .
guided reading can be used but shouldent be used as substitute for one I be truly shocked if teachers grading on group reading rather than one to one.

Although im not against phonics it does seem to have made reading far more compex to average lay person.

I remember learning alahabet
remember sounding words out
I remember flash cards

But we seem to have moves away form one method and exclusivly going for very complicated reading programmes im just greatful we dont have to use ruth miskins read write.

I do think a lot of it is just schools dont have enough time.
they always asking for parent reading helpers in dd old school.
They have so much to cover guided reading is time saving.
Getting parents to drill child after each book is time saving.
Limiting reading and stalling progress to get everyone at similar level makes teaching easier.

Once mastered readings quite simple. yes its based on building blocks of knowledge repetition but best thing to do to improve reading is to read more and greater variety.

All I see is causes lots of drama and upset for parent and child.
They need to reveiw it as damaging a little persons confidence so early I was truly shocked when dd started year one how they segretae and judge them at such a young age into ability groups.

I dont understand why teachers be happy with a coasting child?surly they just then become bored and disruptive.
I understand how staggered progress in national currciculm levels can make the school look better due to value added.

I find myself becoming very cynical about education latly.
The same issues come up time and time again on mumsnet and reading is huge issue for many.

dewe:
"when I had my group it became obvious very quickly who would volunteer answers, who would not want to put themselves forward. Got round that by different methods. You get them to all write ideas on whiteboards and read it out, or take turns who you asked first."

How long did this take and how big was the group? 30 minutes? 40? Five or six children?

Far better to sit them all down with a book to read quietly and take each one individual for 5-10 minutes.

Avon - if that's true it's pathetic and unprofessional.

All this required reading with funny voices to show they understand before they can progress. What a joke.

This link looks interesting.

I would say hopefully my dd level 2 as shes not fleunet or confident to be 3 yet.

www.theschoolrun.com/improve-KS1-reading but even this makes it look simpler like theres not so many things.

I'm not quite sure why there is so much negativity about guided reading.

In Maths, or Writing, or even Art, would anyone say 'Oh, I would much prefer my child to have a 5 minute session 1 to 1 that I would for them to have a proper planned lesson in that subject'?

Guided reading sessions are exactly that - reading LESSONS, with an objective, planned activities, a variety of skills being explored etc etc. So in my 25 minute guided reading session today, every child read aloud for a sustained period. Every child predicted likely endings to the story (our current reading objective), and then every child looked at evidence in the text to that point which might support one alternative ending or another. We also incidentally looked at punctuation (our current writing target), discussed our favourite authors in deciding what book to read next, and added a few words each to the 'interesting descriptive words for our writing' section of our working wall. In a 5 minute 1 to 1, the child would only have been able to do the 'reading aloud' bit, and would not have benefitted from the rest of the planned reading teaching. Our guided reading books are also levelled, so sometimes I will use books from a higher level (and may well then move the whole group up) and sometimes, if I want to focus on a tricky reading skill without the complicating factor of decoding, i will use a lower level for a session or two.

We do also do 1 to 1 reading - for children with SEN, where we feel there is a possible gap between performance in guided reading and other reading behaviours, where we want to plug a specific gap quickly for a particular child so that the whole group can forge ahead.

And we do some 'whole class' type reading as well, because 'scanning an online text for information' for example, is much more engaging when it's in a topic lesson.

However I really don't understand the general feeling of 'Oh, only 1 to 1 reading counts'. Perhaps if we called it 'Reading lessons' rather than 'Guided reading' it would give a clearer idea of what is actually happening?

"In a 5 minute 1 to 1, the child would only have been able to do the 'reading aloud' bit, and would not have benefitted from the rest of the planned reading teaching. "

No but they would have read with the teacher. Why don't you do both? Guided reading is no substitution for one to one.

Spot on Brycie. You should be doing both if you want an accurate assessment for reasons explained above.

Am shocked you exclusively do 1-1 reading only for children with SEN.

Yes me too. Joke. Plenty of time for other stuff. Not one to one.

Not just for assessment. For everything, for teaching, practising, encouraging, motivating, everything.

brycie my point about reading to an adult at school is that it can sometimes be only that, the child doesn't learn anything by reading aloud, especially if the adult is 'mrs soandso' from over the road who just comes in to help because she is lonely, or 'johnny whatever's' mum who is only volunteering so she can keep an eye on the teacher and have a good old nosey at what books the rest of the class are on (believe me this happens), only if the adult is actively engaged with the child and teaching them reading. You also took my comment out of context, as I said reading for 5 minutes with an adult at school is less valuable to children who will also be read for longer at home that evening with a parent who is engaged and and able to help their child progress. If the parent is rubbish, or doesn't bother reading with the child at home, then reading at school is more important to that child than the first. Agree with everything teacherwith2kids said.

Every child in every guided reading group reads with me, a teacher, every time. So every child in the group I described above read several pages of a book to me.

They just happen to have the rest of a reading lesson attached to it.

[And remember that 5 minutes per child = 2 hours and 25 minutes where the teacher is not available to teach your child anything else]

I also think that you might have misinterprested my post. To clarify:
We do also do 1 to 1 reading WITH A TEACHER OR A TA WITH SPECIFIC TRAINING-

1. for children with SEN (which in my school may be up to 40% -50% of the class] AND
2. where we feel there is a possible gap between performance in guided reading and other reading behaviours AND
3. where we want to plug a specific gap quickly for a particular child so that the whole group can forge ahead.

Plus every child reads 1 to 1 with a (grand)parent volunteer every week - but that to me is 'rehearsal', not 'teaching'.

In our school, children have a 20 minute guided reading session with the teacher every week. The children who rarely read at home or are having difficulties read daily with TA and work on specific objectives. In a class of 30, if the teacher was to read 1-1 with a child for 10 minutes (5 is not long enough to give any quality support/or teaching) then that would be 5 hours!!!!!! of just reading. NO WAY! is there 5 HOURS (a whole session each day) of spare curriculum time to do this. The teacher may get a quick 20 minutes on a Friday afternoon while the children are busy playing and squeeze a couple of children in, or she may take 2 children 2 or 3 times a week during assembly time if she's not leading the assembly, but all 30 would be impossible (on top of guided reading). Even the guided reading sessions are sometimes done during assembly time as there is precious little time in the school day to do them well.

So a very shy child who does not respond well in a supportive small, group (these are rarer than you might expect, tbh) would be read with 1 to 1 under criterion 2, until they became confident enough to show the same skills in a group (again, IME, this takes only a few sessions).

Or a child who seems to be forging ahead in their general reading might again have a 1 to 1 session or two under criterion 2, to 'bridge' any gap between guided reading groups - but tbh I normally just manage this by moving them up to the bnext group and giving them a little extar support for a couple of sessions.

I just don't understand why 25 - 30 minutes of carefully-planned teaching, practising, encouraging, motivating and everything else in a small group with a teacher is regarded as worthless compared with 5 minutes of hasty 1 to 1?

Cross post teacher

(Apologies for typos)

Brycie, what is it that you DON'T want me to teach so that I have the 2.5 -5 hours per week that I would need to give every child a quality 1 to 1 reading lesson, which (rather than repeating the same lesson 6x over to different children 1 to 1) could much more effectively be delivered by me to a group of 6 children who would ALSO get 10 - 20 minutes MORE in that reading lesson??

And I also repeat - why is 1 to 1 reading fetishised? Why is it OK to teach a Maths lesson to a class, but not a reading lesson to a group??

In year 2 my then ds's teacher gave him a 600+ page Harry Potter book to read. Prior to that he was an avid and keen reader. After struggling with several pages he gave up and it took 3 years for him to read a fiction book for pleasure again. He purposely choose very easy books like Captain Underpants because he didn't want to feel he was struggling with reading. It really set him back.
I would chill out a bit and encourage your dc to read for pleasure at home.

(Should also point out, if the reason is that reading has to be 'heard' by someone, that much evidence of understanding in maths lessons, e.g. on shape or problem solving, is also given verbally by children, as are e.g. ideas for imaginative vocabulary in writing, responses to probing questions in History or Geography etc.

Such evidence, like evidence of reading skills from guided reading, is captured by the adults in the classroom usuing normal note-taking techniques. I have never heard it given as a reason why we should deliver Maths or wider literacy 1 to 1.)

Why is it some teachers CAN manage 1-1 on weekly basis with the whole class then?

Perhaps you should ask what it is that they don't teach? And what the rest of the class is doing during that 1 to 1 reading time?

The 1 to 1 reading we do, I do in my lunchtimes, break and the two assemblies per week I don't have to be in the hall for. The trained TA does it in her timetabled 'SEN time', as we only have class TAs for Maths and Literacy to allow them to use all the rest of their employed hours (mine is part time) to make the maximum difference through specific interventions with children who are either SEN or who seem to be falling behind.

The 'what is the rest of the class doing' is a really important question, by the way. A 5 minute reading session with the teacher is of no value whatever if their attention is only partly on the child, with the other part wondering what little Johnny might be up to in the book corner....

Obviously Guided Reading also has the issue of the remainder of the class needing to work on independent tasks, albeit with the contact / non contact ratio being much more favourable than for individual reading. The way I do that is to plan tasks that themselves address specific 'not reading aloud' reading objectives e.g. character studies, investigations of avourite authors, story structure, alternative endings, comprehension, skimming and scanning to find information etc. So in fact the whole class gets a 25 minute reading lesson daily, with one group working on 'reading aloud-type' objectives with me, and all the others working indpendently on other reading objectives.

I will ask.

Feeling quite disheartened. DD has made terrific progress in reading since reception and has seemed well supported.

Now it feels something is going wrong and the progress stagnating. I felt confident with the school, now Im losing faith. Perhaps I should push for 1-1 as she would fit the criteria of a shy child as above in your post teacherwith2kids?