Chatty and not too chatty children achivments in primary school

[rrbrigi]

When the teacher decides if the child can go up a level in reading they consider the child comprehension as well as the reading skills.
But teacher do you consider if the individual child is chatty or does not like to speak too much? I mean at the age of 5-6 probably girls are chattier than boys, or one child chattier than the other. So if you ask a child after read the book what do you think what will happen after the end he or she can have a 5 mins chat and if you ask another child he or she will tell you only a sentence but just because he or she does not like to chat that much. Or if you ask what do you think about the character in the book. Or if you ask what happened in the book. One child will tell you a story for 10 mins and the other child will tell you the main event in 4-5 sentences. But I think these differences do not mean that the first child comprehension is better than the second child, just mean the first child likes to chat a lot.
What I mean there are children in the class who do not volunteer to speak up, but if the teacher asks them they always know the correct answer just these children like to listen and they think twice before they say something. Or when you ask who knows the correct answer they do not put their hands up but if you ask them they do know the correct answer.
How do you deal with these in the classroom? Do you think about this when you level their work in any subject?

I'm watching with interest - my DD is reading red band books fluently and I (after much hmm and haaing) decided to ask the teacher whether she ought to move up. She said DD was a great reader but needs to work on comprehension and talking around the reading.

PS would welcome tips on how to help DD talk more about the story and work on comprehension. Maybe I just need to do it with her more - I confess we do just tend to whizz through the book quickly.

IME (not a teacher but a lot of experience in schools in the past) there are always some very bright children who just don't answer the questions either through lack of confidence or because they think the questions are ridiculously easy so won't answer them on point of principle.

Most teachers will be aware of when a child is like this and when they genuinely haven't a clue BUT they do have to see the evidence and part of the teaching the skills is to increase their confidence and make sure they can talk about it or equally persuade them that the questions still have to be answered even if they are 'beneath' the child in the child's opinion.

I tend not to bother discussing the school books to be honest - much better discussion if we just use home books. discussion and comprehension can be done on any text even if you have read it and they have just listened.

It's not totally about "chatting" though. A good teacher will have read the book through with the dc and ask some leading questions. That will be how they assess rather than in full class discussions. If a child totally refuses to answer, then the teacher can't assess, obviously, but generally they are happy to answer when it's just them, and they can usually be drawn out by careful questioning.

At infant level, our school does a lot with white boards. Teacher asks a question and they write the answer on the whiteboards and hold it up, that way the teacher can see all. Surprisingly (I've watched) they don't seem to sit back and wait for others to answer (which is what I'd have done) before making up their mind.

DD is such a case. She like to "mull" over a topic and then will ask you questions or comment on it a day after.

Doesn't help in school and with books we need to return the next day.

What helps is not "tell me the story" but ask open questions. Start with just 1-2 and gradually built up. Ask your child to give you alternative words for adverbs and verbs to see if they understand what they are reading.

Stop the book halfway through the story and ask your child to predict the ending. Can your child relate to the character, would she/he do something similar or would she/he enjoy doing it (we had something about den building and DD made a design for her own).

DD is already a good silent reader so we allow her to read and then tell us the chapter.

We know work on it for several weeks and DD gets an extra 15 min group session at school for it as well and we can already see the progress.

Bumps at that level it's really seeing what they remember from the story-that they've understood it as a story not just a list of words.
Things like "How did the story make you feel?" "What was your favourite part?" "Why did it make you sad/scared etc.?" "Who is X?" are easy questions.
"Can you tell me the story?" "Could you make up a different ending?" "Can you think of a word to describe Y?" "Can you draw a scene/person/front cover?" are harder, but still doable.

Take the answer to the question they gave and you can expand as well.
So they say "I liked part X best?" "Oh. I liked it when Y happened because.... why did you like part X?"
Or "Y is nasty," "oh yes, he's nasty because he wouldn't get the ball for them. I think that makes his selfish too..." Then you're giving them possible answers for another time.

Thanks DeWe that's really helpful. We certainly don't do anything like that at home, I think Ive been assuming she is understanding it just the way I would, because she can read it.

What I meant. If you ask a child: "Can you describe X character from the book?". One would say: "He was bad (naughty, etc)". Than you need to ask again: "Why he was bad?". The child would say: " Because he stolen the bag from an old lady.". Then you need to ask again: "why do you think it is bad?". And the child would say: "Because stealing things is a bad behaviour.". The other children for the question "Can you describe X character from the book" would answer: "He was naughty, because he stolen a bag from an old lady who went home in a pink dress with her dog who was barking. But she could not go home, because X stolen the bag from her and she did not have money for the taxi. So the taxi driver was angry, because he lost another client, etc

As you see from my example the first child concentrate on the question and give minimum information, but he or she still answers the question (or any question that the teacher asks). The second child is very chatty and at the end of his or her answer he or she speaking about a completely different things. Because the question was to describe X character and not retelling the story.

In my opinion these two children are just different type of children. The first child probably never will answer in 5-6 sentences, and never will be a writer, but still do have the same comprehension skill and still do understand what he reads as the second child.

Repeating the whole story in detail is not necessarily answering the question.

Why did Goldilocks eat the porridge? You can tell me the whole story and still not have answered the question.

Interesting will be watching closely.

Dd could tell you what happens but she struggles with her vocabulary which inpacts on her answers. I have seen her very frustrated at times when asked a question because she clearly knows the answer but can not word it. Sadly she will often take the "I don't know" approach rather than becoming frustrated with herself.

Isn't it normally possible in English to use a lot of small words instead of one big one, or instead of a precise word?

Or when you ask "Could you make up a different ending?". One would say" They played in the park happily and went home, ate dinner and went to bad.". The other child would say: "They played in the park when suddenly a dog came out and the dog was barking, so everyone was afraid of the dog and started to run. Later on they tried to find the baby but could not so they called the police. The police came to help to find the baby. They were looking for the baby for the whole afternoon. Everyone was so sad, when suddenly the dog came back with the baby. The baby was healthy. Etc..."

I know the second answer is better, but the first one won't be able to tell a story like the second one even if he or she will stay on the same reading level for 2-3 years, just because he or she is not that type of child.

I would have thought a child stuck on a reading level for 2 years said more about the school than the child.

No, it is only an example. It did not happen.

I just wanted to know how teacher assess these two different type of children in school.
One of them who interested in facts, "standing in the ground with two legs", probably start to realize that there is no any fairies, heroes, Santa Claus in the world.

And the other who lives in dreams, do think that his or her best friend is a fairy or hero, and do not want to hear about how the lion feed himself in the real world.
None of them is better or worse but surely they need to be assessed differently from reading and comprehension.

All I can say on this is that yes it can be an issue at primary level especially if a quieter child is not talking much because they are shy, have a different teacher, don't like the whole class looking at them.

DS (now yr4) was very like this but DD (yr1) is very confident, chatty, outgoing etc. the school see DD as amazingly bright because she is very vocal about showing it which DS did not do at the same age. He was a harder child to assess as he was not providing the evidence needed.

However, what I will say is that as the quieter, shy kid matures it becomes less of a problem. DS is in yr4 now and still quiet/reserved but will quite happily answer questions etc. He just had to do it when he was ready.

But as somebody else said on giving an alternative ending most likely a child would be asked to write it down and then there isn't a problem.

There are printed guides out here on the internet which tell you what children need to be able to do to progress up the NC levels. They contain specific things like: comments on obvious things like rhymes and significant words or phrases, identifies regular phrases like once upon a time.

That is to say that the requirements are specified in the assessment document and the child either does it or doesn't. From what I've seen it's more precise that what you've been saying above. The teacher doesn't have to fish around in the child's answer hoping to find something useful.

Could you possibly post a link if you have a moment, columngollum? I don't think Im looking in the right places.

www.teachfind.com/national-strategies/reading-assessment-guidelines-levels-1-and-2

Thanks for that