EYFS profile - a question about exceeding the early learning goals for teachers and parents.

[tiredbutnotweary]

An EYFS teacher explained to me that following her moderation training she now thinks it is very hard to award the exceeding category for an ELG, even if, for example, a child is working at a secure 1a NC level. If I've understood correctly a 1b is the expected level for a child at the end of year 1. So a child working at 1a is working beyond the level expected at the end of year 1.

Is this right? Do parents have any expectations that their child is exceeding some of the ELGs? Are any teachers willing to talk about their own moderation training or what they think exceeding looks like?

I'm really interested in ELG "the world" where the expected exemplification materials include these 2 examples - a child using categorisation terms like mammal and stating that mammals have to have warm blood and a spine, the same child showing where her spine, heart, lungs and brain are. Another child stating the reason we do experiments is to see if what we think happens.

Is this level of understanding really "expected" for the majority of reception children?

Thank you Mrz that's a helpful analogy between the two profiles. I've read a few recent posts on TES and it seems teachers do have some of the same concerns, with some saying the general view is that performance (against the ELGs) is likely to be low this year - again.

Learnandsay - My understanding is that in the APP grids children should be reading with expression by white band books. Before about green/orange there's not much material to work with - well your example speaks for itself.

You don't need a reading book to talk about expression. It's about the differences in tone, pitch and speed of verbal exchanges. You can extrapolate how that might be brought about from a the dialogue in a story, but you don't have to. My daughter and I have. In fact we find it highly amusing. But simply because a curriculum requires certain types of themes to be discussed that doesn't mean that you should take inappropriate material, like Aesop's fables (with the fable stripped out) or dialogues (with the dialogue stripped out) and try to analyse them for higher order reading abilities.

None of it matters in the sense that at home we use real books and discuss dialogue and characterisation. But if we didn't I could see how my daughter could get confused with the inappropriate use of school materials. (And how she's to be judged on her performance after that type of education I don't know.)

I don't really know why the teacher wants to develop higher order reading skills on such a low banded level of book and nor do I know why she wants to pull up old books from the basement. But soon we'll have a new teacher and hopefully more reasonable behaviour.

It is interesting hearing a child reading without expression (helping out at school means hearing a huge range). It's not just in the dialog, it's in the narration too. DD now self corrects by re-reading sentences or parts of them not because she got the words wrong but because what she read didn't make sense to her and that shows in how she expressed it. When she re-reads it her intonation is quite different and it shows she's understood what she's read. It's quite subtle but when you hear a child read in a monotonous voice it really stands out (well just as it does with an adult). But there's definitely a limit to what you can bring, or feel inspired to bring, to a text if a book is dull as dishwater ...

At a very basic level it is knowing that if there is an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence you read it differently to a sentence with a full stop, or if the author uses capital letters for a word you say it loudly. All of this can be done with very simple text (in fact it is often best demonstrated with very simple picture books at story time) and doesn't require deep discussion or analysis just modelling from a supportive adult.

The teacher should know that my daughter already uses punctuation in her reading and in her writing. Of course that doesn't detract from the fact that low banded books are best for demonstrating it at a basic level. But there is not much to be purchased from teaching a child something which she not only knows but can demonstrate herself. I'd imagine that at some point the child needs to be asked.

To be fair in this particular case, it doesn't seem as though punctuation is the topic of the teaching.

Mrz, I do agree that basic books can be read with expression, it's the way that many mums read really simple baby books after all.

But there is a difference in the early scheme books - the writing is often stilted, the speech pattern unnatural. I also think it is easier for children to work on expression once they've got to a certain point in reading fluency (i.e. beyond sounding out every few (5 or 6?) words)).

What I mean is that at say yellow to green, I would model, but by say orange band, I would say, "and how do you think the character said that" if DD hadn't done it already. But her self-correction started at purple/gold. No idea if this is the usual progression of course!

L&S If the teacher has stated that she's encouraging expression is it because DD isn't using much expression at school? Given that she is reading with expression at home with the interesting books, is it worth suggesting that she pretends she's reading her school books to a baby, instead of a teacher, so she needs to use as much expression as possible to make the 'boring' baby book sound like fun?

No, it's because the school books are the wrong books for meaningful expression. Of course she reads Three Little Pigs with expression. You could try reading your shopping list with expression if you like. Then you'd see how hard that is.

LandS - what would happen if you refused to read the school books?

The same one stays in her book bag for weeks on end and does not get changed while you get on and hear her read something decent.

Can you not write in her reading diary "DD refused to read shit school book, so we read X instead"

Yes, I agree some early scheme books are stilted, but trust me, if DD read a shopping list she'd read peas very differently from chocolate

I think we will be in that position very shortly Simpson. this morning my daughter said 'I am really finding it hard to find a book that interests me in the box now, I have read all the good ones' I have to confess I told her to 'look for an interesting one and if there isn't an interesting one pick the shortest one there'

DD has not had a school reading book for months (does a dance round the room) she is taken into the defunct library and allowed to choose whatever she wants (within reason).

Last week she had a version of Cinderella, the week before an Angelina Ballerina little chapter book, this week she has 2 Mr Men books.

She still does guided reading at stage 7 (project x books and we have to read that sometimes for her homework) but that is to help her writing more than her reading.

Probably nothing would happen if we refused, to be honest. In a way the teacher has a point, a book is a book and the scheme is the scheme. It's her choice how quickly she progresses children through it and which higher order skills she encourages with which books. It's entirely up to her. So in a way all we/I would accomplish by refusing would be to stick my oar in. I can't make the teacher change her approach. All I can do is read proper books with my daughter which I'm already doing. (The teacher already made it clear she doesn't want to know about those other books.)

My point in this thread isn't really about the reading per-se, but it's about judging my daughter's reading ability. How can the teacher mark/profile my daughter's reading ability if she doesn't know what it is?

I think DD has what she calls "reading tests" ie assessments.

I was given the results for one of them.

She had to read the text first (something to do with volcanos) and the teacher marked if she got any words wrong (she didn't) and then they asked her several questions verbally and wrote down what she said.

But in order for the text to test the child the text itself needs to be at the right level. And the teacher can only know what that is by challenging the child beforehand. The only other way of doing it would be if the test got progressively harder and harder as it progressed and the child's end point was regarded as its score.

If the teacher gave my daughter a reading test at ORT level four now I wouldn't regard the result as being of interest or use.

I also think it depends on the type of child ie their personality.

DD is I think a bit of a challenge at school and is very vocal about "sound time" being boring etc and books being too easy whereas DS is a whole different ball game and very biddable, reserved, quiet and introverted so consequently his teacher (when he was in reception) never really went out of her way to find out what he could do (different teacher to DD) and noted in his end of school report that he could not count to 10 I guess because he was shy and getting him to open up (then) would have been like extracting teeth

If the teacher is a stickler for doing the exercises, or reading the books, in the order in which they appear in the scheme, regardless of how suitable they are, then the personality of the child probably doesn't matter that much. They're going to get it whether they like it or not.

That's true, but it's probably better that the teacher sees the child unhappy about a book rather than taking the parents word for it iyswim.

In the grand scheme I don't know how much any of it matters. It's just the system is a bit silly and its assessments dodgy.

It's a bit like recording a girl's speed in the three legged race and saying that's her speed. The reply is yes. But you had her legs tied together. It's not her speed if you untie them.

The teacher could just use a different book. She doesn't have to take anything on faith.

But, if the teacher wants everything done in order then that's how it'll be done. The child's abilities aren't part of anything.

"The teacher should know that my daughter already uses punctuation in her reading and in her writing."

It isn't about knowing that your daughter uses punctuation ...it is about knowing how to read with expression no matter how complex or simple or boring the text.

Yes, you can read boring or dull books with expression, it makes them less so . And I once heard someone perform the phone book, quite engaging .