So, reading books, non reading child???

[nextphase]

DS1 started in reception last week.
We've had a reading book home nearly every night since. I'm fairly sure he can't read - can't reliably identify letters yet, but the repeatability of the books would make you believe by the end he was reading - so by page 8 of "where is chip?" he will say "where is chip" as his my finger follows the words.

Other than talk about the book, pick out letters, what can we do? And how do we / teachers know when they are reading rather than guessing or remembering?

Anything we can do to help him? Have had a note back saying they use "action words" but nothing more, so still working off the 18 letters from jolly phonics we had from Nursery in a different school. Questions in reading dairy get ticked, but no answers...

You need to talk to the teacher personally to find out what they are expecting. A child who is just starting to learn phonics isn't going to be able to read words like 'where' or even 'chip'. Are they expecting your child to be able to read already, or are they just sending books home because parents expect books to be sent home and they don't actually expect you to do anything more than read them to your child? (In which case ask for a story book instead).

And there in lies my problem - we both work full time, so I rely on messages or notes in book to contact and find out.

Would you expect a child just starting reception to be able to read?

We got a list of things from reception of what they wanted children to be able to do before starting. Recognise their own name was on the list, reading most certainly wasn't.

I would be very doubtful of any reception expecting all children to be able to read on entry - a lot of children don't even get read to when they are young. Unless it is a prep school with a feeder nursery which expects the nursery to have done the ground work?

Instead of passing notes, can you ask the teacher to phone you at work one day after school, so that you can have a proper discussion?

Thats a good idea. Thank-you.

Nope, not a prep - just read all the "my 4 day old is reading" on MN! It was starting to worry me slightly!

OK, will give it another week - they did phased start, and the last lot started end of last week, and then ask for a call.

Cheers

My children's school doesn't send books home.until about Feb half term by which time they've learnt enough phonics to read the stage 1 books.

Until then, he'll be having his usual bedtime stories with me.

My DD is in Y1 now and couldn't read when she started school. The school very sensibly sent home picture books for the first half term for the parents to read to the children. By that stage the children had done a fair bit of phonics at school and DD was able to have a stab at the very simple reading books. Also the school had a session for parents about phonics and how they are taught at the school. That helped me enormously as it's a different method from the one I had at school.

I'd drop the teacher an email if you can't pop in and find out exactly what they expect. Very few children starting reception can read apart from their name and maybe a few other familiar words

My ds age 4 can't read.
Have had books with words in repeating fashion and yes, he will start repeating correctly by page 3.
Don't have a problem as think just assessing them all.
Biggest issue for me is my clinging, sobbing son at drop off.
Please let that stop...

DD's school puts the emphasis on "sharing the story with the child, letting the child read as much as they can and you then finish the rest and talk about it".

Our reading diary entries started with "parent read to child" and ended with "DD read by herself" when she moved to the next level.

I found this approach very sensible as it meant you share time and books together every day without stress. When we realised that DD was reading from memory we would just start anywhere in the story and then she had to decipher the words.

Hi - our teacher starts all the kids with sentences straight away. Just 3 or 4 words per sentence and very basic with an accompanying picture. They are really just recognising patterns and shapes of letters and the sounds that go with them. They're not expected to know how to read them straight away but they very quickly get the hang of it. She focuses on that visual recognition before moving onto the writing of letters and shapes. So we read them together and a lot of it is memorising but it builds a picture slowly in their heads and it seems to be very effective with the children reading full books very quickly in P1.

You'd be surprised how many children start with no experience of books!
In my school, we expect that parent & child read the book together (which you do) so that they know how to hold a book, turn pages, that you read from left to write, discuss what is happening etc. In each class the first half term is always a recap/consolidation so they probably will end up with books to start reading more independently in a few weeks. Then that's how you can tell if they are guessing- does it make sense? Does that word match the picture, do they correct themselves ( this comes much later) etc

DS2 is 4 and can't read. His school have been sending home picturebooks, and I've just been updating the diary with what else we've been reading (mostly how to train your dragon books, because he's obsessed). I'm not enormously eager to get biff, chip and bloody kipper again, so I'd like to leave it as long as possible.

DS1 had reading books from the start when he started (but he was 5 and not in England). He very quickly learned to read words by sight. And they taught him phonics too.