Listening to a freereader in year 2 - how often?

[wigglywoowoo]

How important is it that I listen to my daughter read at home? She has come home today having been told that she needs to read to me every night. Currently I probably only listen to her read about once or twice a week but I read to her every night.

A few weeks ago, at parents evening we were told that there was nothing she needed to work on and she is on target.

How often do I need to listen to a free reader?

Every day/ night throughout foundation/keystage 1.

I listen to DS1 (also Y2 and a very confident reader) probably four nights a week. Would do more but there's not time, he also has spellings and maths every week, and on the three days I work it's basically bedtime by the time I get them home from the childminder.

I do read to him every day and he reads to himself while I get DS2 to bed. It seems to work out ok.

Even children in Year 6 are encouraged to read to their parents. It is not just about reading the words but the invaluable contribution that parents can offer by asking questions to their children about what they have read. (I am a teacher)

We'll if she told you that herself it sounds like you won't have too much persuading to do, which is good.

Pretty much daily.
It wasn't "reading for meaning " he needed practise on, he was good at that.
It was "Reading aloud" he still needed ( and still needs in year 3) to work on. Reading aloud is a separate and valuable skill. My lad will be reading aloud regularly at home until he is reading aloud at first sight ,accurately, at a good pace, with meaning , correct emphasis and some characterization. Currently we get 2 or 3 of those at a time but seldom all.

He will sit and read to himself for hours, but tends to read aloud too fast, miss words, miss punctuation, gabble if the story is exciting and make up the pronunciation of longer words to get them over with and get on with the story. But he understands what he has read and can recap the story no problem ( remembering the characters names is harder test and one he often fails.)

I think it is important to expose them to lots of books. Once mine became free reader she rarely chose decent books herself, particularly non fiction. With the reading to you it highlights more difficult words they don't know the meaning of. Tbh I think it became more important to do it at home as mine rarely got listened to at school once she became a free reader.

During the week I tend to let my Y2 DD read her school books by herself, unless she get a non-fiction ones that have interesting vocabulary. On weekends - we pick an interesting book and read it together - i.e. she reads it to me and we discuss it. We read most of R.Dahl, Charlotte's Web, Pinoccio, Harry Potter this way and it's been great fun for both of us.

I find school reading books a pain to read with her as our school insists on keeping kids on banded books until Y3, irrespective of the actual reading ability. Who knew - ORT goes to level 16 ...

If she thinks that you need to hear her read - as mine does sometimes - get her to read you a chapter - shouldn't take too much time!

One of my greatest guilts. We sat back on our laurels thinking our DS was such a great little reader - only to realise in Year 6 that if we'd had him read aloud to us daily, as we were meant to, or at any rate more regularly, he would probably have had better spelling, better punctuation, and a wider vocabulary (the former two because it forces them to look more closely at the page than leaving them to read on their own so they just absorb stuff off the page more). And he'd be able to read aloud more accurately, rather than skipping over words.
Even if you don't do it every day, if I could do it over again, I really would try to make sure he read to us most days...

Time is my issue. I'm a single parent, working fulltime and during the week we will get maybe an hour to an hour and a half at home before DD's bedtime. DD also has 2 instruments to practice and homework but homework is mainly done at the weekend if possible.

DD does read to herself but they are saying that she needs to read to me every day. Up until about October DD read to me every day and it was a battle as she wanted to read silently. I get no resistence with her reading once or twice a week and I thought it was all was ok given the teachers comments in January.

Slapped wrist for me

Oh, no, don't slap your wrists... it's so hard to find the time. The only thing I wanted to say was that, if the teachers are right about the reasons why reading aloud is good, then we did pay the price round about the time he hit year 5 and we realised his written English was not where it could be. In other words, according to DS's teachers, the pay-off for reading aloud is not what you think it is, and isn't short-term.

Think of it like this...... You want your child in year 7 (high school) to be able to pick up any book and read every word and understand it.
To get there you have to put in the hard work and part of that is having your child read to you every day/night. If you don't do it how do you know where they are at or which words they are skipping over because they can't read it.

Also when they read to you, you can ask questions and make sure they understand what they are reading. Comprehension is very important hence some children can't move on levels if they can't understand the words they are reading.

When DS1 was in Y2 we had similar feedback to you. Move on a year and the Junior school (same site so very close links) expected us to listen to reading 4 times a week. Now in Y6 DS1 would read at us for hours at a time if we could listen.

DS2 (Y4) is more reluctant but he reads most days albeit for 10 minutes not the required 20. His reading has improved massively as a result and he often reads at bedtime, so he reads 3 pages then I finish the chapter sort of thing.

Definitely hear her read as often as you can. I'd say a minimum of 4x a week. Now that she's fairly secure in her reading, she will be meeting loads of unfamiliar words, and words with tricky sounds. If she reads in herhead, she is llikely to skip over them, or make a rough guess at how they sound. Children need an adult to encourage them to sound out carefully, and to help them with the meaning of new words.

(I teach top set Y6- ideally I would STILL want them to read aloud to an adult every couple of days. It would really help them.)

Listening every night is a requirement at my DS school - he is in year 4.

It's never a chore. He loves reading and it's a nice thing to do as a parent. Sometimes he reads in the car to and from school. Sometimes he reads while we are snugged up on the sofa.

Reading every day massively expands their vocabulary and helps enormously in their creative writing.

We made the mistake of leaving our y2 free reader to his own devices while concentrating our efforts on our yr dd.

The school allowed him to coast throughout y2. We didn't know any different as he is our first DC and we just thought he was doing great because he was a free reader.

When he went up to the separate junior school which has a different reading scheme he was assessed and found to be on a lower level than some of his friends who had not been free readers in Y2.

He has caught up now but he has been reading to us everyday since starting y3.

No don't slap your wrists - I didn't realise at all and dd coasted through year 2. It's only recently I've realised she doesn't understand the meanings of longer words and she still needs that input.

Similarly to others, mine went to junior school and they put her on a whole new reading scheme so it's back to reading every night for us (or at least trying to) even if it's just for 10 minutes in bed.

I try to every day but in reality it's more like 4 times a week. We tuck up in bed together when he goes to bed and he reads for about 15 minutes. The books he's getting now (especially the non fiction ones) often have more challenging vocabulary in them. I pick out the word I think he probably won't get, explain it to him then use it in a sentence. Then I get him to use it in a different sentence.

He took to reading like a duck to water and can be far too confident about his abilities so without crushing his self esteem we've tried to step things up a bit at home.

DS2 is struggling at school but as he's used to finding things hard he's always open to correction and advice!

on days DD1 has read at school to a member of staff (3 times a week in Yr1) she reads to herself that evening as I think that is an important skill in itself plus she likes to be able to get more read as she can read quicker that way and the other days she reads a chapter to one of us and a chapter to herself. She is very good at coming to ask the meaning of a new word or looking it up in her dictionary and I always ask her to tell me what has happened in the bits she has read herself and we sort of recap it before she reads to me.

This happened to me too although DS was in yr3.

At around Easter time he was dropped a table/group in reading and his teacher told me his inference was not strong (because I was not listening to him read and asking questions - the teacher did not say this btw, I admitted it ).

It took about 8 weeks of daily reading aloud before he was back on track.

He is now in yr4 and while I don't listen to him read every day now, it is at least 4 times a week. His sister is in yr1 and very strong in reading and she is still listened to every day.

Thanks for all the replys, I do understand the importance of comprehension and I do this daily with the book I read to her at night. I'll increase it to 3 -4 times a week but I'm going to go back to the teacher and clarify this instruction that came via my daughter as only a couple of weeks ago we were told she was hitting/exceeding all her targets. I can already see the battle that I will have again if we return to daily reading.