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What is your child being taught at reception?

94 replies

EllieNW3 · 10/03/2013 17:49

I would be interested to hear what your child is being taught at reception currently (reading/writing/spelling/maths)? Is the whole class being taught the same or is your child more advanced than others?

The reason why I am asking is that we are currenly living overseas (moving back to the UK this summer) and I think I made a bit of a mistake on choosing an IB school for my nearly five year old daughter. It's a long story but we didn't have much choice and the British curriculum school she was offered a place just didn't seem right and it had loads of negative reviews. When my daughter was at nursery (pre-reception) the teacher thought she was one of the most academically advanced so as my daughter was interested, she introduced her to blending words. Now at her current school the teacher has only just finished going through phonics, sorting words by starting letter and has only just introduced a spelling board for my daughter and she is supposed to be in the most advanced group. I am not as worried about maths, as she seems to know her shapes (3D as well as normal) and is confident with numbers, sorting etc etc.

As we are now moving back to the UK and we are looking for her to go to a British curriculum school I am panicking a bit. I have been teaching my daughter to read at home using the Oxford Read Write Inc (she is currently level 2) and I am focusing on the 45 high frequency words. Ideally, I wouldn't want to be doing as much teaching at home (as let's face it we would much rather be playing in the park) particularly as she already spends so much time at school. I have spoken to her teacher but I understand that they just aren't allocated enough time for teaching basic academic skills (there is a lot of focus on 'topics on inquiry'). Anyway, I could go on for ages. From my experience, whoever told me that there isn't much difference between the IB and British curriculum wasn't quite right (although I did know that IB might be a bit slower at the start, but didn't realise how massive the difference would be!).

Thank you for reading and I would really appreciate to hear your comments x

OP posts:
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numbum · 10/03/2013 20:48

pozzled keep reading at home. My DD was reading before starting school but her reception year was diabolical. Guided reading for her was reading with the ones who couldn't read so she could 'help' them Hmm and she only had one to one reading about 10 times all year.

However, I kept on reading with her at home (at her request) and she's now, in year 1, currently reading The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe (again at her request and yes she does understand it and is using words from it in her writing correctly).

OP, there's a great website called teach your monster to read which we use at our school once a week and it's made a big difference. There's also the bbc bitesize website which might give you an idea what your DD needs to work on academically if anything.

EllieNW3 · 10/03/2013 20:53

numbum - thank you. I will definitely have a look at those websites.

OP posts:
mrz · 10/03/2013 20:57

We attempt to listen to children daily and do shared reading in class as part of our phonics input

Pozzled · 10/03/2013 21:03

Hmmm I wish more schools were like yours mrz.

numbum I certainly will continue to read with DD at home and will continue to work with her on the phonics she doesn't seem to be covering at school.

teacherwith2kids · 10/03/2013 21:04

Oh no! You mean to say that I should have locked all the dinosaur names up in a cupboard because they're only for 'special advanced children with pushy parents' to access (rather than the child with a statement of SEN, who can read them all, and tell you a lot about each dinosaur to boot)...

And I leave words - in the form of books - strewn all over the place for ...shock, horror ... every child to look at should they choose to do so.

Pozzled · 10/03/2013 21:09

I know, teacher. I've obviously been doing it wrong as well- I've actually been displaying words, making word collections, and encouraging the children to find new ones.

As soon as I get back to school, I'll lock them all up until each child can prove that they're worthy enough to get the next one.

numbum · 10/03/2013 21:09

teacherwith2kids you just know those parents will steal your keys and get a key cut so their child can access the dinosaur names right?

TheSecondComing · 10/03/2013 21:11

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teacherwith2kids · 10/03/2013 21:12

First job for tomorrow - take down the display of all the words that the children have 'borrowed' from books and stories and poems and class readers and thought that they might like to use in their writing. They might be (shhhhhhh) only 'for the very advanced who have been taught to read on sight by their parents'.

learnandsay · 10/03/2013 21:13

You lot are funny. Access to the word cupboard has nothing to do with me. My daughter told me that she'd read the words in it, which ones they are allowed and which ones they are not. But she also told me her teacher wants to take her to the moon.

Pozzled · 10/03/2013 21:14

Guided reading is when the teacher reads with a small group, who should all be on a very similar level. The children will all read the same book, or part of a book, which they then discuss.

Pozzled · 10/03/2013 21:15

lands I know the word cupboard isn't to do with you, we're taking the piss of the teacher because it's just so damn bizarre a concept.

teacherwith2kids · 10/03/2013 21:19

I find a) the existence of the cupboard and b) the proud 'isn't she clever' way in which you mention your child's access to it equally amusing, L&S.

learnandsay · 10/03/2013 21:22

OK, teach, next time I mention cupboards I'll have to mention the thousands of uninteresting ones that my daughter has also seen just to appease your sense of proportion.

TheSecondComing · 10/03/2013 21:30

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learnandsay · 10/03/2013 21:35

Not nearly as bizarre as a word mongoose.

Haberdashery · 10/03/2013 21:46

Ellie, my DD is in Y1 now, but at the end of Reception, what they were expected to be able to do was roughly:

Have a decent handle on numbers up to about 20 - be able to count objects and do one more and less or maybe do up to 10 more and less if a bit more at home with numbers. Some children were doubling and halving numbers; using physical objects as a prop is fine.

Know 2D shapes and be starting to know 3D shapes. Be able to point out why a triangle is a triangle etc (3 sides, 3 corners etc).

Be able to read common words (they, are, you etc) or easy words, probably using sounding out to read the less familiar ones rather than being able to read them all immediately. More able children might have been reading harder words or less common words and would be expected to be letting go of sounding them all out. They would know all the basic phonic sounds of the English language and be able to put them together at a fairly basic level.

Be able to make a good and phonetically plausible stab at writing words - no more than a sentence or so at a time would have been expected, though some children would have been at the stage of producing several sentences and using capital letters and full stops.

They'll have done a bit of topic work, perhaps some science along the lines of using cups of water/sand to fill up other vessels and seeing how many cups you can fit into this jug or similar. Maybe some nature study along the lines of going to the park and looking at leaves - common features of leaves, what colours leaves can be, what happens to leaves in autumn, what insects can we find and what are they like - can you draw them etc. Maybe biology - DD's class had chicks hatching and talked about the life cycle of a chicken and had butterflies hatching so talked about those too.

They will have done some history or social studies - perhaps talking about what was different when their parents and grandparents were young and asking family members about that, or investigated some common celebrations in the UK - Christmas, Diwali, Eid, Easter, Bonfire Night etc and talked about traditions that different people have. They might have talked about families - who is in their families and drawn pictures of people who are special to them etc.

Your daughter sounds like she is doing fine. At the end of Reception there is a huge variation in how far children have got with academic stuff and it is not necessarily related to how well they will ultimately do in their studies - right now in Y1 my daughter's mixed Y1/2 class has children on ORT Red and children who are off the reading scheme entirely. There are children who are working on one more and one less and children who are learning about multiplication and division at a simple level. There are children who will happily sit down and write a page of A4 which is nearly all spelt correctly and children who struggle to write a few words in a sensible order.

It sounds like your daughter is currently somewhere in the middle of that range and as she is still in Reception, she is doing just fine and will probably fit in perfectly well to any Y1 class.

TheSecondComing · 10/03/2013 21:50

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learnandsay · 10/03/2013 21:55

I guess some people have a very limited sense of what's bizarre, then.

simpson · 10/03/2013 22:01

I do find it odd that certain words are locked into a "special" cupboard tbh...

Having said that a couple of the things DD is having to do at school I am a bit Hmm about too...

learnandsay · 10/03/2013 22:04

I'm not sure if a lock exists. I've seen the words in my daughter's classroom, they're laminated and have velcroe on the back so that they can stick to a board. In the past I've also seen such words taken home by children to learn. I guess they have to be kept somewhere.

numbum · 10/03/2013 22:08

In the past I've also seen such words taken home by children to learn but what other children are doing doesn't interest you...

learnandsay · 10/03/2013 22:10

The child in the past was a member of my family.

simpson · 10/03/2013 22:19

What words are these??

TheSecondComing · 10/03/2013 22:21

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