Teacher pushing back with regard to reception reading books - how do I avoid an annoying exchange with her?

[Quangle]

So DS is 4 - youngest in the class. But holding his own in Reception and doing well. He was sent home in November with some level 3 books which seemed about right and obviously since then there's been lots of work at home and at school so he's now consolidated at that level or a bit higher (we use the songbirds ones at home and he's happy working through level 4 with me but that's probably only because we ran out of level 3 stories).

At some point after November the books from school went back down to level 2 - no idea why and some of them only have 16 words in the whole book and he's past that. I put the odd comment in the book journal "DS read this fluently - could the levels be reassessed?" over the months but nothing happened and the books continued to be too simple. New reception teacher then arrives at half term and level 2 continues. I mention again this week "could DS go back to level 3 - he's easily managing these books?" and get back a message "I have sent home more level 2 books - he can go up when he has read ALL the level 2 books" (her caps!).

My problem is, how do you push back against the pointless pushing back without being an arse? I've had children in the school for 4 years and have never been into school other than for parents' meetings so I'm not the painful pushy mum but now I realise I'm bad at getting my message across.

I know this seems like a tiny issue but because DS is so young (and weirdly, there are no other summer babies in the class) and so not top of the class (in an academic school) but also quite well behaved so not calling attention to himself in other ways, I don't want him to be invisible to her.

In the thread that we are in there seems to be some kind of problem with reading (hence the going backwards by two book levels, from an already pretty low base, maybe not by Reception standards, but still pretty low base.) Therefore the "you've actually got an illiterate child, dear..." style arguments would need more examination. They're probably still wrong even here. But they'd warrant some examination.

calamitously, you seem to be saying that you've usurped the role of elementary-reading teacher because you don't like the books being sent home. But, I'm not sure if that's what you're actually saying because you're still relying on the phonics that he's learning in school, is that right. So, what you're actually doing is swapping his reading books for your own (and writing about them in his reading diary) and his school is OK with you doing that.

I think part of the problem might be that children's performance will be different at home than at school. I am pretty sure that his ability to read and discuss a story are much better sitting at home with my undivided attention for 15 minutes than they will be as part of a group of children or even individually in a busy reception classroom at school.

It's perfectly possible for both the parent's higher perception of current ability and the teacher's lower perception are both entirely accurate for the situations in which they interact with the child. There can be huge differences in how children behave an perform depending upon context.

That's largely why I don't bother taking it up with the teacher and instead choose the books that work well for how he's reading with me rather than the books the school send home.

and he enjoys learning new rules and applying them

You're teaching him phonics? (And selecting your own reading books?) No wonder the school books aren't appropriate. Does the teacher know what you're doing? Do you write about the teaching as well as the home-selected reading books in the diary?

OP, i think you have a clear choice.

You either ignore the reading levels at school and continue to read what you like with your child at home, or you need to grit your teeth and chat to the teacher - just say that you think having to read all of the books in the box even when your child is a couple of levels above seems rather counter intuitive - you have to stand your ground.

We had this with DS - at the start of Yr 3 we had managed to get him onto free reading and I was so relieved to get off the scheme books as he hated them. Only to find that in Yr 4 the school had purchased a load of higher level scheme books and all the children were told they had to go back onto them. It had taken me a good couple of years to get DS interested in reading again after experiencing the nightmare that was the Magic Key, and we just ignore the scheme books now and he reads at home. I thought about making a fuss, but I'd done that with the scheme when he was in year 2 and got nowhere.

That might be true (in fact it probably is) but teachers can get really confused with part-home-educated children. And the teacher's assessment can get mucked up. It's best to at least alert the teacher to what you're doing so she can make allowances even if she doesn't actually give you any credit for being a super-supportive mum (and, let's face it, she probably wont!) But at least she'll be aware of what you're doing.

No. What I'm saying is that the school send home books that DS hates (often refuses to read) and which often don't contain very many words at all that are decodable with the phonics he's been taught at school so far. If he liked them I'd've stuck with them, but he really doesn't like them. There is no value in me fighting with him to get him to recite the same phrase over and over again for 5 days in a row.

So what I've done is to find books he does want to read and to work through the levels on those schemes. Sometimes that means I need to teach him a bit of phonics he hasn't come across yet (kn, for example). Because he's getting one-to-one attention, he's keen to read them and the books tend to be much more driven by phonics than the books he gets at school, he is able to read books very well in higher bands than he gets at school.

I don't think it's possible to usurp anything in helping your child to learn to read.

I don't actually care if the school are ok about me just writing about the books he reads at home. I haven't asked them, although they haven't complained.

It is possible to usurp, it's really possible.

I'm not sure why you think that parents must check it's ok with a teacher if they want to help their children to learn to read, column. I'm perfectly capable of teaching phonics to a 4 year old (many reading schemes pretty much do it for you anyway, so if you work your way through each book in turn you'll have learned the phonemes covered in that level).

I'm sure the teacher is making her judgements about DS's progress on how he performs in her classroom, which is what I would want her to. I make my judgements based on how well he does at home. There isn't actually any tension between the two.

I think there's a real problem if parents are seen as 'usurpers' when teaching their children. That's not a healthy attitude for anyone, parent or teacher, to take.

pftthemagicdraco,

When the school bought the extra set of readers for Y4, did they not give your son a diary to write in and various jobs to do with the books? Or did the school just send the brand new Biff & Chip books home and hope for the best?

I don't know whether the thinking of usurping is deliberate or not. (Well, in certain cases, I do.) But aren't there inevitable problems caused by two people trying to dig the same hole or teach the same child?

No.

Unless one of them is trying to undermine the other, the hole will just get dug more efficiently.

DS's school are teaching phonics. I get him to use phonics to read books he's keen to read, and help him to learn new phonics as and when he needs them. The schemes we use tend to have a fairly in-built phonics structure within them so the stories tend to introduce one new thing at a time while building upon what he's already learned. It's not going to do him any harm if he's come across a phoneme before when they start covering it at school. The worst thing that might happen is that I inadvertently teach him to roll his rs.

Any comments we've had in his reading record have been completely positive. Things like 'this sounds like a great story' or 'what a lot of reading '. I make comments on the things I think his teacher will actually find relevant. Things like 'used his phonics to decode some tricky words' or 'acted out the story for me spontaneously' (that happens quite a lot) or 'We talked a lot about bossy people' (if the story is about that).

Well, in that case it's brilliant! On you go then. Not all teachers are like that.

It's sad that not all teachers are like that. They are supposed to value parents because actually parents are the best resource they have.

It is possible to usurp, it's really possible.

Wow. I'm amazed by this comment in its audacity. I think calamitouslywrong has hit the issue on the nail.

We used to live abroad and we've found the teacher attitude problem a uniquely British one. There seem to be far too many teachers - and not all - we've had some truly outstanding ones - with a very unhealthy attitude toward parent involvement.

The problem is (looking more widely than this thread), you can say until you're blue in the face "I think my DC needs to be on this level of books", but in the final analysis it's the teacher's decision so although you can discuss it, there's no way you can overrule it is there? But that doesn't mean anything really for your DCs reading ability, or future academic success.

I would say it's difficult not to teach my ds some phonics at home. I don't think it's usurping. He's still keen to learn them "properly" (his word) at school.

Even the phonics reading books he gets home have the odd word that uses sounds he hasn't learned yet. "No" for example. Rather than saying "That says "no"", I would say "sometimes o makes an oh sound". I have to explain it to him somehow and they are supposed to be learning phonics not look and say. Bingo, he's learned a new sound. Not to mention the words on the cereal packets, signposts, home books, etc etc that he might ask what it says. You can't not answer a child's question for fear of usurping his teacher!

Anyway, I don't actually know which sounds he's officially sanctioned to know and which they haven't done yet. This week I'm supposed to say "never mind you don't know that sound", next week I'm supposed to say "remember a-r says ah"?

never mind you don't know that sound

Don't you feed your children icken & ips, then?

columngollum - were you a teacher. Did you find many parents were the usurping kind?

No, I've never been a teacher. But I've been accused of all kinds of usurping.

yeah, okay

Don't you feed your children icken & ips, then?
well I'm not going to say "never mind, you don't know that grapheme-phoneme correspondence" either. Point being I don't know which they have or haven't done and even if they had sent us a list I'd never remember what was on it.

oops italics fail