DCs starting a new school after half term...what do I take? Should I mention G&T?

[FishfingersAreOK]

Due to a move my DC (YR & Y2) are starting at a new primary school on Monday. When we left their old school on Friday I was given all of their work/folders/old reading records etc.

Not so worried about YR stuff but should I take Y2 literacy/numeracy/handwriting stuff in with us for the first day for the new school. Or would that look...er....I don't know...unnecessary? Would it be useful or just a pain?

Also, Y2 is on the Gifted and Talented register for her reading. Not sure how this has actually benefitted her tbh. She doesn't know she is on the register. We are not that bothered in many ways. We were happy she was being stretched at her old school - and she was happy and thriving. So again, is there any need to mention it? The new school is bigger, and one of the appeals of it is there will be more peers for DD (Y2) of a similar academic ability - rather than her being pulled into Y3/Y4 classes. If I don't mention it will it seem odd? If I do will I seem pushy? Does the G&T transfer to a new school IYSWIM or will it just be dependent on the others in her year.

These are probably all questions I should have asked the school(s) last week but we only found out they had places on Thursday and everyone agreed beginning of the half term was the sensible time to start....but has left me with very little time to get my head around it!

Not sure if posting in correct area....Oh....blasted half term

Well, yes, amum. I suppose it's OK-ish if as a parent you and your child can do their own reading thing. (But some parents can't.) The thing I do like about our teacher is (although she's not willing to change the policy) she is willing to tinker mildly with its edges here and there if we run into problems. It's better than nothing.

But what is 'the policy'?

From what you've described, it's that the teacher is happy that a child is reading securely at a level before before going on to a higher level.

Reading books in 'scheme order' seems, from what you've said, working through the scheme from the easiest books to the hardest.

If the school books are very easy for your daughter, then whizz through them and then read something more interesting.

As I said before, it might be worth exploring the non fiction route if you have to stay within a certain level so at least your DD learns something from each book and it can be expanded easily at home.

If the books are too easy/far too easy (and we have a target to work towards, like expression) then we'll use the book to work towards that target (assuming it has dialogue which is suitable.) And that's fine.

There seems to be something wrong with the supply of non fiction books at the moment. When we read hard yellow we got almost all non fiction books, which was great because they were some of the best schoolbooks we've had.

But when she went to blue we didn't get a single non-fiction book. And the green one so far is also non fiction. But if the teacher wants to work on expression that makes perfect sense. You don't have dialogue in non fiction.

But if it's expression that we're working on I'll keep studying the dialogue to make sure the books do assist in the reaching of the objective.

It is possible to read blue level books and earlier with expression. You don't need dialogue for this, it's about reading the emotions and the punctuation. We've had and discussed how to read commas and ellipsis in blue level ORT. Even the often repeated 'oh no!' needs expression. I would be loathe to move a child up without this as it's a good indicator of their understanding of character and plot. This may have been the only target you were given but it's a big one. When my dcs read 'like a robot' i pretend to fall asleep, makes them laugh and has sorted out the start of expression.

I find the "Oh no!" pretty easy to grasp as an expression. Possibly ellipsis as the dreaded "duh, duh, duh," although I don't remember seeing any of them in our books.

Reading commas I'm not sure about.

Well I have just had a quick flick of one of DD's old reading books "House for Sale" levelled at blue.

There is not one word spoken in the whole book so I think it would be pretty hard to read with expression.

As i said upthread you don't need dialogue for expression. House for sale was by far the easiest and the first blue book we got.

Er, well, yes. Anybody can say anything. I can say the capital city of England is Paris. But that doesn't make it true.

DD would struggle to read "House for Sale" with expression now (can't remember if she did when she was on that level though).

Reading with expression is apparently one of DD's strengths but knowing her she would think it utterly pointless at a book like "House for Sale" now as she is used to more challenging books iyswim.

There is also not one comma or exclamation mark in the whole book it is full of "Dad liked the house" "Mum liked it too" etc etc.

DD is at the stage where she looks at the font to help her read with expression and whether anything is in bold etc to be emphasised.

OP at the last parents evening I was told that my daughter had been put on the G&T register for reading and phonics. We asked what this meant and the teacher said that it was noted in her record and that in future if enrichment stuff was available she would automatically be considered. My DD works with the upper school for a few sessions a week, as far as we can make out mostly a change of scene and a word search.

Surely the whole G&T think will be written down somewhere to save you the embarrassment of marching in 'demanding' G&T rights?

OP, dos your Y2 read anything? DD will grab everything, cereal boxes, my old books, etc but her favourite thing is DD2's reading scheme books, Biff & Chip, Magic Key, I think she finds them comforting, a chick flick break from heavy literature.

lands you are clearly being ridiculous. I'm thinking the problem may be that you don't understand reading very well if you think you should only alter your voice when someone else is talking! Makes me think the class teacher is likely to have a very valid point. I also don't understand why you are in such a race to finish the reading scheme, being on a scheme doesn't mean you can't read whatever else you like. Childhood is short enough, it feels like you are rushing it away.

Do you think that the big bad wolf and the little pigs have the same voice?

Do think that Mr Noisy sounds the same as Mr Silly?

Do you think Tigger sounds like Eyore?

You might have discovered something ridiculous in my argument, but I don't think you've put your finger on it yet. Try again, maybe.

Where have I said the only change of voice can take place when another character speaks? Can you quote it to me please?

We too had a school with a policy of having to read every book on a level before moving up. In Yr 1, the school did a test to assess ds's reading age and determined he had a reading age of 13. They encouraged us to give him appropriate reading materials at home and allowed him to get books from anywhere in the school, but he still had to continue reading his way through all of the books on each level of the reading scheme. I did once ask what the educational advantage of this was and no real answer was forthcoming.

• learnandsay Mon 03-Jun-13 21:02:19 Indeed, we're making much of it and it's fun. But in the lower level books where there's not much dialogue learning about expression is hard work/impossible.* i was just saying it's not impossible. Last time i listened to a class of infants reading those using expression stood out, it demonstrates that they are starting to understand pace and feelings. But i don't think you are really interested in advice, it seems you are just using this as a moan forum. If i was as dissatisfied as you and put so little faith in teachers i'd have pulled my children out to home educate them. It's clear that you think you can do it better.

The first school DS1 went to it was school policy to read every book in the scheme. They were sending him home 6 books a night in reception to get him up to the 'junior school' books he should have been reading.

Learn and say, you give out the impression from your posts that children can only add expression when they are reading dialogue. That is definitely not the case. The sentence starting "The boy was walking down the street when" can be made to sound mysterious, or exciting.
A set of sentences "Mum's cup was red. Dad's cup was blue. Biff's cup was green etc" can all be made to sound different and make the story sound interesting. That is why when an adult reads a book to a young child (even though it is way below an adults reading level) they can make it sound exciting to a child.

Of course the passage: The bear came closer, and closer and opened its massive jaws

can be read with lots of expression. But that's not the kind of passage you find in a blue ORT book!

If you can make:
Mum had a red bike.
Biff had a blue bike.
Chip had a yellow bike.
Dad had a green bike.
Wilma had a white bike.
Wilf had a black bike.
sound interesting using different voices then you're a better reader than I am!

DS2 would add a great element of surprise to the above.
DS1 at that age, probably wouldn't.

Sorry, add surprise to what exactly, and how? I didn't understand the last post.

To finding out which colour the bike was.
Mum had a .... red bike type thing

Or equally if he thought the colour wasn't right for the person DS2 would have disgust in his voice when reading it.
Hard to explain in text. Easy if you could hear him. But he is a very expressive little chap.

I see what you mean if dad had a pink bike!

But that type of authoring really takes skill, to weave in funny, sarcastic, surprising elements in that way. Dr Seuss does it beautifully. The books we've had so far do not have those sorts of details in them. The text is just shopping-list text.

Dad had green trousers.
Chip had yellow trouser.
Mum had blue trousers.
ad nauseum.

I think you're right. It is possible to expressively read certain dialogue free texts. But the potential for expression has to be in there in the first place.

That's why i'm always pleased when we get the songbirds books, easier to get the emotion in. The kids seem to do a couple of weeks on standard ORT, then songbirds, then nonfiction or poetry then an equivalent level from a different publisher. Each has its place - ds hasn't learnt new words from standard ORT but has asked a million questions about the subject matter as he's not emotionally more mature than an average 5 yr old - so after 'house for sale' he took to spotting for sale boards when we were out in the car, reading the company names and working out which were the most and least popular estate agents in the area. Not reading skills - but i'm sure would fall into developing knowledge & understanding of the world.
On another book he said the words were easy so i got a stopwatch to time him read it and then beat the time, he's ultra competitive so he enjoyed it - and read the book (albeit not in the way his teacher planned i'm sure). I don't mind as long as he's reading and gaining confidence.

It's a pity that songbirds don't go higher than stage 6