How long does your reception child take to read to you?

[Walkingbkwrm]

Old member rejoining (sign up email no longer active oops).

DS1 just started reception and we are reading his book at home but it seems to take ages - I timed it tonight, 37 min to read about 25 words! He only had problems with 2 of them and we did talk about the pictures (admittedly this may have taken a while). He just got distracted and lost focus mid word sentence a lot. I don't think he's too tired he seems ok. Other parents seem to spend 10 - 15 min (they say anyway). If we only did that much there would a) be tantrums because we wouldn't finish what "story" there was and b) we would be reading less than 10 words a day. Neither seems right to me but 40 min is rather a long time, his attention isn't markedly better at the beginning compared to the end though - if anything it's better when we get to the last page!

Any advice from teachers/ other experiences? I will try and get hold of his teacher if need be but she isn't on the school door at drop off (it's a y1 teacher I think - joint entrance) and I don't always pick him up.

we were told 10 mins in reception (then 20 in Yr1 - as mine got better with reading during reception we automatically upped the time a bit)

Mine doesn't read yet and so far we have only had books without words. We spend 5-10 mins thinking up the story to go with the pictures.

Nearly 30 mins is far too long to read a book for a Reception age child - it would imply to me that the book is too difficult for him as he must be having to think about every word. I would either alternate pages or not read the whole thing in one go.

Molly that's way more exciting than ours

DS (August born so just turned 4) started reception last week and has been sent home with a reading book which gets changed 3 times a week. There's a sticker in his reading record which says read with parent but no other advice. We read lots anyway and I feel like I should be dog something slightly different with the school book but not sure what.

Doing not dog!!!

We were not doing any reading at this stage in reception...

In fact, my dd didn't really "get" reading until about half way through year 1. Now in year 4, she is the top reader in her year.

Relax and don't do more than a few minutes.

dd: at this stage? they did not have books but I think we read at home. Not even sure they had their sight word matching games at that stage.

ds: no reading at all. he did not like books and could not blend or segment so I left it until february half term when he was ready. we were still doing the pre-reading skills at that stage. It is only in year two that I have opted into the school reading as he has taken off and they have finally matched the level of book to his ability. (too hard. then sight words, then by the time I was paying attention again, too easy)

My DS just started reception last week and we are still at the me reading normal story books to him stage at our school. This is the same for all the children and they will starting bring home reading books for the children to read after half term holiday. This to give the school the chance to start teaching the phonics sounds to all the children. My year 2 DD did the same and it worked well. I'd say reading would generally take around 10min, 15 max once she got started.

I think you need to establish with him that he will not read the whole book in one go.
If he can't cope with not knowing the end (actually nothing really happens in these very early books!) then perhaps he could read for 5-10mins as many suggest and you could then read him the rest.

It seems to be the case that most children start school not reading these days. However, if you go back a number of years, I think more children were already readers. My children both started learning to read at about 3.5 and could manage somethng like a Mr Man book, or My Naughty Little Sister on starting reception. There was no pushing beyond what they could manage, but a daily 5 minutes of it, day in and day out.

OP! Sounds like your boy is doing really well. He is reading words even if slowly. Don't do too much per night or he will lose enthusiasm. Little but very regularly is key.

Retired TA here - keep it fun for him, don't 'push' too hard, and let him take the lead to start with. If he doesn't feel like reading some days, then don't; it's not a crime!

Ds sounds a bit like wombat's dc but despite being one of the oldest and able to read he still only reads for 10 min a night. Might be worth asking for an easier book so it is quicker to read and build up confidence.

He got his first book today...and it didn't have words. :) still took us 15 minutes to read it twice...he likes to really figure out the story from the pictures.

Oh, it was six pages.

Thanks for all the advice - I was a bit sneaky yesterday and typed out the contents of his last book in large font - took him 4 min to read it. I then produced the book and asked him if he wanted to look at the illustrations. About 30 min later he had finished telling/asking me about the pictures, with commentary. Have decided to worry less (well try anyway). Can't decide whether a more interesting story would take an hour or just provoke more interesting topics of discussion. Not sure what's going on in his head - it doesn't take anywhere near this long if I'm reading! Fishstix - 15 min to do twice sounds fine - ours was only 6 pages as well!

DS1 would take over an hour to read his books in reception and year 1. At the time, I knew no different and persevered with patience. He is now in yr 4 and his reading is off the scale. He likes David Walliams and Tony Robinson, for example.

DS2 is now in yr2 - he is a little quicker, but 30-40 mins seems the norm. He is on turquoise which I understand form the ORT chart is on track. Average 20 pages with several sentences per page.