Why has Year 2 teacher sent DD home with a ridiculously easy reading book?

[pokesandprodsforthelasttime]

Granted it's only the 2nd week of term and the teacher probably hasn't got round to assessing all 30 children yet.

But surely they should know which book band she left Year 1 on?

Is it my job to let them know where she's up to via the reading record?

Teachers really should be able to give a decent basic education of reading and writing without relying on parents. That's surely the least we can ask.

Yes I accept it's possible a mistake has made. But like I said the same thing happened last year. I put it down to a mistake then but nevertheless it it took until October to it sort out. Two years running seems particularly unlucky and it's annoyed me, because I dislike having to go in and sort it out. I work and I'm not always there at pick up time so I'll have to make an appointment I feel like I shouldn't have to!

Crumbledwalnuts I totally agree. But how far we are from that situation. There's a massive cultural bias in the UK against bright kids who speed ahead of their classmates. As can be seen on this thread, the very idea of wanting your kids stretched, based on a valid and realistic parental assessment of their abilities, is somehow suspect. The automatic assumption, including by far too many teachers, is that the teacher knows best and that the parent is the clueless idiot.

Given that cultural bias, and add to that the demands of 30 kids in a class and the valid need in that situation to focus on those struggling, it's not surprising that those children with committed and educated parents are at a massive advantage, whatever the negative caricatures of 'pushy' middle class parents that you get on here. Those who lose out most from this situation are academically-inclined children with no home support.

Just here briefly, donning my tin hat in time for the wholesale removal of 'free readers' back onto the banded scheme, starting tomorrow.

However, I do have a 'meet the new teacher' evening tomorrow after school, so I will be able to talk about it then, and the rationale behind it - I do agree that communication is key.

(I do also get a list of a) reading levels (as in NC levels) and b) book bands for my new class. Having read with them all, over 50% need moving, either up or down. So such lists are, at best, a rough guide to where a child will be post-holiday)

I give, btw, more than a decent basic education of reading and writing. Rehearsal of reading is something I would love all parents to support children by doing, but I spend much of my break / lunchtimes making up the difference for those who don't have that kind of parents, and i do it willingly.

However, I do also reserve the right to actually teach children to read - ie to give them the books that will help them to achieve a specific objective to make progress in some aspect of reading. Reading is not about 'harder and harder books' (one of the reasons for moving some children from free readers is so that they will read some challenging texts - many choose books that do not help them to move forward in the areas they need to given free rein over the bookshelf and sometimes I want them to get just the right degree of challenge).

Sometimes, I give children a really challenging book. Sometiumes I give them a really easy one. Using a book without words, or with minimal words, is sometimes really brilliant for children's imaginative and writing work - I have seen some fantastic work from year 4s based on 'Where the Wild Things Are' - and that is a picture book with a sentence on each page. It's all about what I want them to learn next ... and yes, I have a plan for what I want them to learn next, that's my job, regardless of how patronising you think it is of me to actually want to teach children....

No, it's patronising of you (or maybe mrz I can't recall) to tell a parent whose child has been sent home with a book several years below her reading level that she obviously has no real idea of what her child's reading level is, and that the teacher must have had an ulterior motive in sending it home. In that case, as I suggested, the teacher should make this motive clear to the poor idiotic parent, because otherwise they are going to wonder quite what the point is.

As an example, my DD is now a fairly fluent reader starting year 1. Not exceptional, and certainly not a free reader, but reading well. If the first book she is sent home with this year is, let's say, a book with a single easy word per page, then I'll assume it's a mistake and leave it in the book bag. If actually the teacher would quite like my DD to practice making stories up from books with few or not words, or practice reading more loudly, or whatever, then that's great, but then I need to be told. Because I am not a fool, or deluded about my child's brilliance, or all the other cliches that I regularly read on here from teachers.

You as a teacher are quite welcome to teach precisely the way you want to. I don't actually disagree with you - clearly reading is about reading books of different levels of challenge for different reasons. But I do take issue with your supercilious tone. According to your post, most of your 'free readers' are actually only so in the imaginations of their parents, and it is your sorry task to take them down a peg in order to teach them properly. Many of us, you'll be amazed to read, don't actually care what particular 'level' (red, blue, green, polka dots, free, imprisoned, whatever) our child is on. But we do reserve the right to query it if a teacher is apparently making a child work (sometimes for extended periods, as some of the experiences on here suggest) at a level markedly below where we know their actual skills lie. This clearly happens, and not just in our imaginations, whatever you may like to think.

*I mean practise, obviously:)

Incidentally, every single time my DD was moved up a level last year was because I mentioned to her teacher that it seemed to me that the books on the previous level were losing their challenge for her. Luckily for me, DD's marvellous teacher saw feedback from parents as genuinely useful to her. In every case, she made sure she read with my DD that very day, and in every case moved her up a level, thanking me for bringing DD's progress to her attention.

This teacher was second to none, and she obviously did truly excellent work teaching phonics and everything else. I'm massively grateful to her. However, DD got at most 10 minutes a week of someone listening to her read. That's no criticism - in a class of 30, I don't see how it could be anything different.

But please don't tell me what I was doing at home was just 'reading rehearsal'. It was actually the backbone of her progress, because we spent about 20 mins to half an hour every day one-on-one listening to her read. Unless you take your lunchbreaks in a tardis, that is simply not the kind of support you can offer every 'parentally unsupported' child in your class.

I'm actually a teacher myself, albeit at tertiary level. The limits of my abilities and influence are quite clear to me, so I'm frankly amazed at how many teachers on here, especially primary, have totally unrealistic estimations of how much they actually teach children, compared to how much many of them learn at home.

No, most of my freeders don't need 'taking down a peg' - they have specific needs relating to improving their reading, and, for the moment, I would like to meet those needs through books at a controlled reading level (ie banded books). YThat is how those needs can be met most effectively in the (I agree very short) reading time with an adult that they have in school. I fully expect - in fact hugely encourage, through trips to the local library in school time, active use of the class and school library, daily reading of 'real' books throughout the school day etc etc etc - them to be reading other books as well [school reading books should be, and are in most cases, a tiny proportion of the reading 'diet'].

The parents will see this as 'demoting their child' - as this thread demonstrates, that is how such moves are perceived, pretty much regardless of actual pedagogical method or rationale.

[I mean free readers, though tbh freeders is a word I may adopt....]

It's funny, both mrz and I teach / have taught in schools where, for a significant proportion of the children, school is the only teaching input they get - and that is perhaps why we have our particular perspective. I do appreciate that teachers, at primary, secondary or tertiary level, whose experience is in insitutions where parental input is a major factor for the vast majority of students, will have a different perspective.

I suspect at many schools the help of parents is 'assumed' - as it usually is on MN, because it is after all a hive of concerned parents. That is not the case in many schools, and where a teacher knows that any educational input to a child comes from within school, it doesn't seem 'inflated' to state that, it is simply a fact.

You talked about removal of 'free readers' (in inverted commas) back onto the banded scheme. That sounds like you think of it as a demotion too! If a teacher sent my hypothetical free reader home with a banded book and a note saying 'please practise x', I wouldn't bat an eyelid. If she sent back a blue level book with no additional context, I'd certainly ask myself questions.

And people on this thread haven't really talked about teachers 'demoting' their children at all. They've questioned why their children have been given books very markedly under their reading level, sometimes for extended periods, with no explanation whatsoever by the teacher. Is that really not a reasonable concern in your book?! Are all teachers bastions of perfection? That does seem to be your rather concerning starting point.

I understand that if your experience is of a school with very little parental input, your perspective is very different. But as you point out, many schools particularly those on MN are quite different in their expectations. But that is why it sounds a bit off for you to dismiss the concerns of parents on here - because most of us on MN are not nightmare pushy parents, but we are certainly not either passive recipients of the teacher's edicts and superior expertise, and neither should we be.

I mean 'back' as in 'we're going back home' - a move to something they have been on at a previous point in time, not a demotion (though I am also using the word, originally slightly facetiously, because I am aware of its connotations to parents).

I usually start from the point of view that teachers are competent at their jobs, taken on average over a period of time. I agree that all teachers make mistakes, and that at particular points in time - beginning of the year, for example - competing pressures 'you must get a reading book out' vs 'I haven't done a full assessment of every child' mean that decisions are made on insufficient evidence.

In the OP's case, the teacher may have made a mistake (easily resolved by note in the reading diary), may not have had records passed up to them (ditto), may have started the year by issuing easy books before a new assessment (worth waiting a week or so for that), may be acting in response to an assessment of the child in class which may eventually be proved incorrect (for example, the child may have been very hesitant when first reading to a new teacher), or may be acting out of a longer term pedagogical plan (may have responded to a concern either in reading or in wider assessment e.g. phonics testing etc that shows phonics not being used to tackle unfamiliar words or whatever). Time will tell.

In a similar way, I have queried DS's Y8 setting for English. I thought it was a mistake. It turns out to have been based on assessment data, and digging below this there is a whole issue to do with reports, and also a genuine weakness in DS's writing. On this thread I have simply tried to point out that sometimes what looks like a mistake MAY (only may) have a genuine reason. Or may be a cockup. But is unlikely to be a conspiracy.

I miss Learnandsay.

It is difficult, isn't it, not to adopt entrenched positions, based perhaps more on 'tone' than on content of posts..

I mean, I know that I bristle at posts that seem to me (wrongly, and I am exaggerating for effect before anyone quotes me!) to imply that teachers know nothing, teach nothing, and that all the hard work is done by parents, who know best. Because I know that most teachers know a lot, teach a lot, and value the input of parens while reaching an all-round view of a child.

Equally, I am sure that you bristle at teachers who say that they know about teaching, that they make judgements of their pupils based on evidence and experience and that some parents have different views about where their child is performing compared with their actual performance. Because you know that most parents know their children well and understand their progress accurately, and know that teachers do make mistakes.

Apologies for those of my posts whose 'tone' has led to all of that.

Teacherwith2kids you are very defensive - I'm not criticising all teachers and all schools, I'm just questioning this particular situation.

I don't actually care about her being demoted. I do care that I have to waste time making DD read ridiculously easy and painfully dull stories that she read 2 years ago. And then going into school to sort out the mistake.

If the teachers want parents to be supportive with their reading scheme at home they need to send home appropriate books.

It would be just as unfair and frustrating, for both the parent and child, to send home books that are way too difficult.

When you put the book back in the reading bag, and put a note in her reading diary to say she'd red it fluently, and that she used to be on X band, how did the teacher respond?

OP, not defensive towards you. Was posting in response to impecunious, who was being somewhat accusatory.

Anyway, got to go. Reading assessments + parents' meeting tomorrow....

Argh cross posted! It will be a mistake I suspect like it was last year, hopefully it will be sorted out a bit quicker this time. DDs school actually sounds a lot like yours teacher as a result I suspect the teachers have low expectations from all their pupils and little ambition for them :( This kind of shows too.
DISCLAIMER - not saying your school is like the last bit of my post!

Oh we didn't get the book bag back today. Will see whatt happens tomorrow.

The whole "free reader" concept is at the heart of many misunderstandings ...what does it actually mean in reality? The child can read anything they will encounter and have nothing more to learn? unlikely in KS1 or 2 ...in many schools it simply means we've run out of scheme books for your child in this class, so when the next teacher reintroduces the scheme books parents get upset.
Does decent basic education not include reviewing a child's learning and revisiting previous learning because the teacher has recognised there are gaps or using professional judgement to decide which resources are most effective to teach specific skills?

I've never understood the term 'free reader' tbh. I've got a first class degree in Literature but I would need help to comprehend a engineering textbook.

Part of the problem is that banded books facilitate a linear understanding of 'learning to read' when Imvhe it's much more textured than that. There isn't the same champions league mentality with maths as there is with book bands for example.

Don't know what if any alternative there is though. It's easier to see the colours don't necessarily matter that much looking back than when you're in the thick of it though.

Our new reading scheme isn't book banded or colour coded ...it's great!

OP, I would definitely wait till the next book comes home and then decide what you're going to do. This happened to my son when he moved from infants to juniors. I waited a week and he got given an equally easy book. I was STILL patient and waited until meet the parent meetings a few weeks later. Big mistake. By that time he had become very reluctant to read any books from school at all. "They're boring/for babies/I read it last year" etc.

In the meantime I tried to keep up his interest in reading by bringing more challenging books home from work (I am a librarian in a school so do know a bit about children reading). He devoured those so I wasn't too concerned about what school was giving him. But what happens to all these OTHER children in the same position who don't have librarians or teachers for parents, or even parents who have spare time to devote to them and encourage reading? There must be thousands of kids (particularly boys) getting turned off reading at the start of each academic year as they are expected to plod through bloody reading scheme books which are far too easy.

When I finally met up with the teacher and asked her how they approach reading in juniors she told me that they get passed minimal information from the infants with which to work () and are essentially all just expected to do the reading scheme again (at an ability point considered average for their age group, I assume - I don't mean they start from picture books!)

I had other mums tell me that the books their child was given were far too easy and told me "just sign the book each night and take the book back the next day as if they've read it. I have tried asking the teacher to give harder books and have given up asking." Essentially they see lying to the teacher as their only option if they want to avoid their child being turned off reading altogether. How sad....

I see it time and again at work - kids arriving at secondary school being perfectly capable readers for their age but who just don't read. When I quiz them about it a lot of the time they tell me that books are not for them and they just aren't exciting. After my own son's experiences, I wonder how many of them have been lumbered with teachers in primary who have stuck rigidly to reading schemes and bored their pupils silly, instead of pointing more able readers in the direction of a really good quality, varied class or school library (as happened when I was at school). Allowing pupils to be free readers at the request of their parents does not always work if they are allowed to bring their own books in from home - half of them will spend all term reading Diary Of A Wimpy Kid and the like.

We need teachers to lead more able pupils to new and interesting books that they might not have chosen themselves given total free reign. This takes more thought and time on the part of the teacher which I can understand they don't always have (well, hopefully just the "time" part, anyway!). There are pressures on teachers to get the poorer readers up to a certain level, I know, but it doesn't mean that the most able should have to read unchallenging stuff just so that their reading records can show "progression".

And by the way, pushy parents simply does not come into it, whoever said that. Am surprised that term was even raised! It is a far more complex issue than that.

Great post curlyhaired! While no doubt all MN teachers are committed to stretching all their pupils (a bit like MN parents!) in precisely the best and most interesting ways, in the real world it often doesn't quite work out that way.