Filling in Reading Record Book

[NewSchoolNewName]

If your child reads an extra reading book at home - not a reading book provided by school - would you make a note of it in the school’s Reading Record Book?

What does levelled texts mean?

Book bands is a common way of levelling text

Not I didn't 'teach' him to use picture clues, it's what he does and how he memorises words. It's a skill he has due to his autism.
I'm not going to tell him he can't do that because Gove doesn't want him to am I??

It's not a skill it's a handicap if it continues I'm afraid

It has nothing to do with Gove but lots to do with what we know about how the brain works in skilled and weak readers.

I didn't 'teach' him to use picture clues, it's what he does and how he memorises words. It's a skill he has due to his autism.

But presumably you aren’t encouraging it, recognise it as a reading problem and are providing appropriate intervention in order to develop the phonics skills he needs to be a competent reader and speller. He might get away with it in year 1 but it’s likely to be a bigger problem further down the line.

I think autistic people have many skills like this, what a shame there are still teachers out there that try to fit them into 'normal' boxes.

As the mother of an autistic child (whose teacher thought the same as you) I'm appalled that teachers are still spouting such nonsense and failing to teach our children the knowledge and skills they actually need to be successful readers and writers

Who said he\s not being taught the knowledge and skills he needs? You have decided to assume that.I merely commented that using picture clues and word recognition is 'part' of learning to read and something that some children find easier. The child is taught phonics every day and has daily interventions. He just decides to use his own way at the moment.

DS was an early reader, was given his free reader badge at end of YR, so sometimes had to use other methods to read words as had not been taught all the phonics rules by then. Obviously he still had the phonics lessons to learn the appropriate skills. I used to worry about his spelling when he was in YR as he didn’t seem to sound out the words like most of the other children did. I did try to encourage him (I assume a lot of the time he must have been doing it automatically in his head).

At a recent Governors’ meeting we were talking about the phonics screening test. This did not exist when DS was in KS1 but whilst discussing it with the teachers it would appear that children like my DS might fail this test, as they would struggle with the made up words.

I would suggest you follow the advice from Mrz, who is a fantastic teacher for any child, but also has an experience of having a child with autism. You can listen to any advice from good teachers/posters, but I if your child is special, like mine, her advice is something that can make a huge difference.

Who said? You said "I didn't 'teach' him to use picture clues, it's what he does and how he memorises words. It's a skill he has due to his autism. I'm not going to tell him he can't do that" so you're reinforcing the strategies of weak readers and allowing him to believe that we read using pictures.
If you're actually teaching him to read the words accurately and correcting his use of ineffective strategies I apologise for misunderstanding you.

Ineedaholidaynow good readers don't have a problem with pseudowords ( if you think about it at age six there are lots of real words that children don't know and they need to be able to read these and not substitute for words they know already). Children who are confused by pseudowords are the same children who misread real words.

Indeed, even my 4yo DD who is on pink band books in Reception can read out CVC words that she's never seen before and get the sound right. Then, I can tell her what the word means. She knows she won't understand every word we say and if we pick up that she doesn't know a word we say/she reads, we tell her what it means.

This did not exist when DS was in KS1 but whilst discussing it with the teachers it would appear that children like my DS might fail this test, as they would struggle with the made up words.

This myth gets peddled a lot and I’d be wary if that’s what the teachers are telling you. Not only is it not true (able readers who fail the test are very rare), but the few able readers who fail are exactly the children the test is designed to be picking up.

it would appear that children like my DS might fail this test, as they would struggle with the made up words.

So how does a child know the difference between a made up word, and a real word that he’s simply never seen before?

There’s hundreds of thousands of words in the English language. It must be extremely unusual for a KS1 child to have come across all or most of them.

I think if a child fails the test because of the made up words, it’s highlighting a genuine problem.