Not challenged in reading-how to raise with teacher?

[Sleepdeprived42long]

My son is in primary 1 (Scotland). He started school able to read-he announced at Easter he wanted to be able to read the same as his big brother lol!

We knew he would start at the very beginning in P1 so it didn’t bother us when he was bringing the wordless books home in term 1. We had parents night about 5 weeks ago and we were pleased the teacher had recognised that he needed to be challenged more with his reading. However, there’s been no change since then. He’s still getting stage 1 ORT books home. At home, he’s reading his stage 5/6 books on oxford owl online with no problem-his understanding is great too.

I want to speak to the teacher/school but I don’t want to sound a) pushy or b) critical. I like her and I think she’s giving a lot of her time to kids in the class with ASN (understandably).

Any advice on how (or if) to speak to teacher/school about this?

Just say he’s finding his homework easy and ask for harder books.

I would leave it until after Christmas now though.

Can't you just write in his reading diary? Really though it doesn't matter if the books are dull just go to the library and get a stack of his own books. By next year there'll be plenty of others who have caught up and he can just start reading chapter books top which are less tedious!

Talk to the teacher. Our daughter entered reception reading. She had been reading for nearly for an year. We mentioned it to the teacher in our first meeting. When she got her first set of books, they were at gold level (still lower than what she reads at, but that is perfectly fine). They recognised that she is an advanced reader and has been emphasising on comprehension with her. She comprehends also pretty well but they want her to frame her answers - like summary better.

Thanks everyone. I think I’ll speak to her after the first homework in the new year. We are already getting through a ton of library books at home - it’s more the fact his correct reading level does not seem to be being recognised at school.

Books aren't the real problem. You can still challenge the child with the books without words. Ask the child to make up an alternate stories, synonyms with new words, write a review, etc, etc, there are many things you can do with any book.

That said, if his understanding is good and reads lvl5/6 while getting lvl1 from school, it sound silly. You need to be that parent when your child need you to be.

But his actual progress, I wouldn't worry so much, he is reading a lot at home, he will progress anyway.

What I found in early years was, that the children aren't as vocal as you expect them to be, or as good as they are at home, so there are good chance teacher is seeing different side to your child. In that case, you need to speak for them, there is nothing wrong to be that parent for your child's sake. And good teacher appreciate it, ime.

“Hi I just need to talk about ax’s reading book level. X is finding them very easy and needs a higher level of challenge as the current books are turning them off reading at home as they’re too easy”

I wouldn't worry too much. Mine never were challenged by school reading, all it meant was we spent little time on it, and they then read their own choice, which was far more interesting anyway.

I would ask for some harder books to take and try over the school holidays. I speak as a parent of a 4 year old and a teacher.

Just be honest and say they aren't challenging him. Could you take a few from the next couple of levels to test him out over the holidays? Then let the teacher check with your findings once you return from Christmas.

I am a teacher.

I bought the reading books and quietly worked on them at home myself.

It's worth speaking to the teacher, but ask questions rather than tell them what you want. In my experience, it's very easy for parents to overestimate their child's ability. I don't mean that unkindly, but there's so much more to reading than simply decoding and then understanding, and often parents are keen to rush through the levels without getting the most out of each one. By Level 5 I'd expect children to have been introduced to non fiction school books, to know what contents and index pages are for and to be able to use them with support to answer questions and find information.

It does sound like Level 1 books will be too easy for your child, but be careful of skipping through the levels too quickly. Have they read the poetry books available for each level so far? Can they identify rhyming words, and then generate their own words that rhyme with a given word? Ask lots of questions that go further than just a simple retelling of the story, for example, instead of just asking how is character be feeling, ask how you know the character is feeling that, what words are in the book that indicate that? Can your ds tell you why he does or doesn't like a book, as a pp said, can he come up with alternative endings.

You are absolutely right to talk to the teacher if the books aren't at all challenging, which they most likely aren't for your ds at Level 1, but remember that there is often a lot more challenge to be found in each level than you'd expect.

When we were in a similar situation, we asked the teacher to advise on what our DS needed to work on to get moved up onto harder books.

I figured that this way, if it was down to something like the teacher not having assessed his reading in a while, he’d get moved up onto harder books. And if there was an actual reason - like DS not demonstrating comprehension, not reading clearly etc - then we’d know what to work on with him at home.