I don't WANT a parent helper to write comments about dd1's reading in her reading book!

[pilote]

Is she a teacher? NO! Am I being totally unreasonable to ask her teacher who this person is and what her qualifications are? The TA already does most of the reading and handwriting practice with dd1, what is her bloody teacher doing all day fgs.

"No it's not rocket science - so why do chn still leave primary school unable to read to their ability level?"

Quite

It's a bit like learning to drive. You have a lesson from a proper driving instructor, then you go away and practice what you've learnt with someone sitting beside you in the passenger seat. That person doesn't actually teach you to drive, but can remind you to look in the mirror, to indicate in time and that sort of thing. It would be absolutely fine for that person to say at eh end of the session "That was really good, but you do need to remember to change gear quicker and to look in the mirror before you apply the brakes"

When I listen to reading in school, I try to write the sort of comments in their reading records that I woudl find helpful if they were in my ds's book. I put things like "Jack read brilliantly today. He had a little trouble with "where" and "were" but apart from that read the book through without any problems" I think that if I was a parent,I would be able to use that to focus some home practice on the areas that Jack's finding harder, and I can't imagine being upset or offended by such a factual statement.

dh used to help at a local school (not one our kids go to) near to his place of work - reading, maths etc. he was CRB checked and did the stuff in his lunch break. it was unpaid and i'm not sure if he wrote down any feedback but he certainly played a valuable part in their education while he was doing it.

what a thoroughly ungrateful and dislikeable OP. Get over yourself!

Actually I think the reason so many children leave school with poor reading skills is more to do with the way that they have been taught to read - mixed methods/whole language rather than synthetic phonics - than to do with a once-weekly chance to read to a parent. See the Reading Reform Foundations's website or Debbie Hepplewhite's excellent site if you are interested.

But that is a whole 'nother debate and things are supposed to be changing after the Rose Report.

Many schools don't DO individual reading now - it's all group reading - you should be lucky that your DD is being listened to.

At DS1's school all children are listened to individually once a week, the teacher listens to them on alternate weeks and then it's either a parent helper or the TA that does the other week. They do this IN THEIR OWN TIME (ie breaktimes/lunchtimes) which is why it "takes" 2 weeks for them to be listened to. Fitting listening to 30 children individually takes a lot of time. And I'd rather my DS was reading to SOMEONE instead of the teacher being otherwise engaged for VAST periods of time listening to children reading alone!

wonder if there are more issues here though.

Presumably the op does read with her dd so would know if her dd was struggling with the things the helper commented on. So in reality these comments would only really be a problem if they were untrue?

And a child struggling with certain aspects of things isn't a criticism, after all nobody starts out perfect do they?

If the parent helper has lied in her comments then obviously I would say that it's something to bring up with teacher, but if there is some truth in what she is saying, then I really don't see an issue. and as our reception teacher pointed out to the parents at the first curricullum meeting "reading is not a competition. so if your child isn't reading at the same level as their friends, it doesn't matter at this stage. They will only consider it to be a competition if you make your own feelings on the matter known."

I think you should try and relax a bit. I think you'll find that if there were no parent helpers your dd would be heard so often. I helped in my son's class last year and even with no teaching qualifications I was able to listen to the children read and write a comment on how they had done. The teacher advised us on what to wrtite and obviously if there were any real problems that should be taken up with the teacher not written in the book.I can't see the problem, in fact my son loved reading to the parent helpers - particularly when a couple of the Dads went in which I'm sure provided some relief from the overwhelming female presence in his (& many other primaries) school.

Clearly embarrassed enough about her opinion to namechange... and quite rightly so.

pilote - you are being a bit unreasonable I think. I was a parent helper and took a reading group and wrote comments in a general book (for the teacher to see) about each of my readers, and I also got to awatd house points. Do you realise how lucky your child is to have a parent helping listen to reading ? be grateful !

I don't entirely understand OPs objections. DD's class has plenty of parent teachers. They will even mention DD's reading when we meet them in the playground She is doing fine, might feel different if she wasn't though - I don't think they'd mention it then. Funnily enough that hasn;t ever happened with DS#1 - wonder why

If they are reading with a child, surely it's good for them to leave feedback?

I think the parent helpers at DS's school leave better and more helpful comments in his reading book than I do LOL.

Presumably the school cannot force you to accept that your dc reads to someone who is not a qualified member of their teaching staff, so if you are really unhappy with it, you could just write a short calm letter stating that you do not wish your dc to read to a parent helper and I should think that would be the end of it. They might contact you about it, they might not.

If you can read regularly at home with your dc every day and she is making good progress and you feel capable of dealing with the process yourself, I don't really see that you HAVE to accept this situation if it troubles you so much.

It sounds like you see the negative comments the parent wrote as a reflection on you and your parenting - as if it was somehow an 'attack' on your technique.

As your child goes through school you learn to process some of those feelings and not make everything they do as somehow your fault or a reflection on you.

It's all part of learning that they become their own person.

I'm sure you can see that the majority of people on here think you are ungrateful/unreasonable/rude about the teacher - and that to me is the greatest thing about Mumsnet, that you can post something you have strong feelings about and be forced to look at your own behaviour because you have been shouted at.

You're acting 'defensively' and it's good that your looking at why.

The op didn't mention anything about negative comments. I don't think pilote is acting defensively. I think she's annoyed that she is receiving comments about her dds reading from someone she feels is unqualified to do so. Which imo is fair enough.

i haev been hearing reading for 2 years and i think oyu are much more informed about eh stages a kdi goes through when reading than you are as aparent tbh

i am a teacher anwyay.

so i feel that afetr 2 years you do become wuite skilled at helping a variety of kids
pilot neded a boot up her bakcside tbh
tell your teahcher that your kdi is special

arf

pilote how foolish of you to feel this way. Surely its better to know how many times your child practices reading and how they did with it, than for the person to not comment just because they have no formal qualifications. At least they have taken the time to volunteer their services.

and cod taght me verything i know about typing, she is a darned clever piscine!

juulie what isn't 'fair enough' is her attitide to the 'bloody teacher' or her lack of inforation about what goes on in a modern classroom 'what is she doing if not teaching'. and her lack of basic thanks to a woman who is giving up her time, free of charge to help pilotes child in class!

juule, not in original post, she said further down that the comments were negative unfortunately at 9.56.

True, MB. I agree op attitude is out of order. But I can understand her frustration.

When I comment in a reading record book, I don't comment on the child's progress or ability. I comment on the particular session we have just finished. I think I am eminently qualified to comment on the reading a child has just done!

i liekd it that a mum wrote about ds2

"we chatted baotu he last book he had read that he had finished wihtout me and what he had enjoyed baout it"

I wiret things like

" try and use epression" cos that a level target thing

or algernon has learned how to split tricky words into two.

or " use your finger to hlep, algernon"

quite, in much the same way as I feel qualified to write 'dc worked very hard on his reading and sounded out 3 sylable words' when I listen to ds at the end of the day.

The reading record is just that, informative and a record, but not really part of the teacher's formal evaluation of the childs level of attainment.