How unusual is it for a primary school to focus its attention in YR on teaching the letter sounds, maybe some digraphs, perhaps one or two trigraphs (or maybe not even) and learning (whatever that means) lists of HFW, but not to any great extent turn attention to reading actual books (of any kind)?
And the school thereby, presumably, places the emphasis of learning to read books (of whatever kind) onto Y1 and beyond? And, if one's school has such a system how does one approach it if one's child already reads books quite well and has done throughout Reception? Getting the Reception teacher up to speed with the child's reading has taken a while, but it's getting there. Does one expect to have to introduce every teacher at every early years level to the child's ability to read?
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Primary education
Learning to read in Y1 & Y2
learnandsay · 24/11/2012 19:38
Fairplay simpson 
. Maybe I felt more confident teaching DS the phonics he needed myself due to being a music teacher... vaguely transferable skills...... I just got those rather dull RWI leaflets and went through them.......
I am not entirely sure what DS gets up to in the classroom in Y1 but he seems happy and engaged and I had a very positive parents evening..... also if he knows all the phonics now (which your DD may do by Y1?) then actually it's quite nice for him to stay in his class with his peers for the short time they do it and go over it...well he doesn't seem to mind..........
DD taught herself the basics and I taught her oo,ou/ow,igh etc etc.
But don't think I know enough about alternative spellings in phonics to be able to teach her the next stage iyswim.
So would rather someone who knows what they are doing does it 
At the risk of sounding controversial - I think there is far too much focus, by parents, on what reading level their child is. Is this because it is the only thing that parents can compare and ascertain where, in the class, their own child is? And, being perfectly honest, I think I was guilty of worrying that DD was on an appropriate book level in Yr R.
My DD is August born and started Yr R able to read basic cvc words, and that's about it. Maths abilty wise, she was able to add 2 and 3 digit numbers together - numbers were really her thing. When it came to reading and writing though, there were definitely children above her at the start. Reading wise, she started on Pink Level, like everyone else.
Now, she's in Yr 1 and on Gold Level books; her targets for the year are level 2 in both literacy and numeracy (I don't know which sublevel, I was just 
when DD's teacher told me that). She has been streamed into the class above so she, and a couple of other Yr 1s, are now in the Yr 2/3 class.
Do I think this means she is going to be a surgeon or nuclear physicist? No! I think it means that she is being supported and challenged, both at school and home, and that she has 'got to grips' with literacy and numeracy before some/all of her peers. These things have a habit of levelling themselves out and I know that there will be children at her level, and even beyond, come Yr 6. let alone Yr 13
simpson, sounds like your DD prob knows as much as my DS did (re my amateur phonics teaching 
. I did those leaflets up to level 5 ones and then put him on ORT 5. He then went from there through all the magic key (groan but he loved 
) which is err ORT 9 ish I think. At which point we just did the library stuff- lots of blue bananas and whatever seemed suitable. I got school on board who put him on similar level and I guess at some point he became what you would call a fluent reader.
So, perhaps I don't know any more than you phonics wise. Probably your DD (like my DS) will work out any gaps just through reading from now on, not sure there is that much more to do actually from the phonics readers themselves. There was certainly a sort of in between period from DS going through the phonics to becoming a fluent reader but this was just through time and experience reading (as I said mostly magic key and then expanding from there).
Sounds like she's got great support at home and school so you are probably sorted .
Tygger - it's great that your DS loves school but unfortunately that doesn't work that way for all children. DD has found it hard. At the start, it was feeling left out from seeing other children being praised for things she could do easily (like recognise their names) while her own skills didn't get mentioned. Now she is frustrated without some challenge - I can tell the weeks when she doesn't get any extension work because she is rude and badly behaved at home.
Learnandsay - your post about garum pinpoints the other problem with being able to read fluently, quite apart from all of the sitting through phonics. While this is something that other children will catch up with in time, at this stage the readers, particularly if they are book ominivores, just know more stuff. So DD is asking questions at home about the date of the Big Bang; at school she is spending two days learning the days of the week. 
It was very interesting seeing the old thread revived though. Reading it again, what struck me was how tentative we were with school, in a way that we just wouldn't be now. DD now has (some) extension work because we have asked and asked, and gone back when it hasn't materialised and gone up to the Deputy Head (who is head of g&t) and generally been difficult.
And so to answer the original question, yes we had to introduce every teacher to it (firstly Reception Teacher, then new jobshare, then the Deputy Head). IN each case they went 'oh, workbooks' and then, two months later, when they realised that she really could read, took the workbooks away again. It is slightly better in year one, but not enormously.
But I did sympathise with the teachers in the end. I think that the structure of reception does make it hard to differentiate on a regular basis, and finding suitable books (i.e to meet emotional age as well as reading age) is hard work.
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