Could your reception age child do this homework ??

[IllegallyBrunette]

Ds has got a sheet with 4 pictures at the top of a Fire engine, firemans boots, firemans uniform and firemans helmet. Each item has a colur next to it to indicate what colour they should be.

The underneath there is a pic of 3 firemen fighting a fire.

Ds has to colour the pic in correctly, using the colours suggested above.

That is fine, he can do that.

Then underneath that there is 6 lines where Ds has to write 2 sentences using the words listed at the bottom of the page.

The words are - engine, hose, ladder, water, put out, fire, danger, wearing, jacket, trousers, suit, helmet, boots.

Now I am assuming that he has to add words such as I, and, The to these words, else a sentence cannot be made.

Last time he had a sheet like this he ended up in tears. His pencil control is still very poor and so his formation of his letters is still very wobbly, and he gets them back to front upside down etc. His writing is also very big in his attempt to control it, and so he can take up a whole line with two words.

If he has a word up in front of him, say on a board, then he can copy it given time, but if he has to keep looking for a word to copy then he loses all sense of what he is doing.
I did write the sentence out for him to copy, and held it up in front of him, but he was too upset by that point.

Last time I let him stop after one sentence as he was so upset. I told his teacher why he'd only done one sentence and although she said it was ok, she looked a bit confused that i'd let him only do the one sentance because of it.

I am surprised that they have given him another similar sheet so soon after that one.

I know he has to learn and practice, but if it upsets him again I am not going to make him do it.

My dd3 is starting school in reception and these threads always worry me. She's pretty bright but she doesn't form all letters correctly, whereas before we moved to the sticks, dd1 was reading fluently well before starting school. I know the foundation stage has changed hugely and dd1 is particularly academic (still is at 14) but I still start to panic. Appallingly, I'm a very competitive mum but promise not to send dd on pre-school crammer course before September!

swedishmum, they don't expect them to be able to read or write at the start of reception, they all develop at different rates until they're about 6 or 7, so they expect a wide range of ability

We thought DD was pretty bright until I read this thread!

She is doing OK with her reading (breezes through the Magic Key books on ORT at the moment)and has to revise for a spelling test once a week - 6 words usually related to ORT ie barking, man, tree etc this week.

However whilst she'd colour the picture in beautifully she wouldn't be able to write a sentence. We don't know how she could be expected to even write a sequence of words until her spelling is more advanced and she'd not grasp the use of verbs and conjunctions to make up the sentence at all.

Butkin is your DD not taught phonics?

butkin, they can use their phonics knowledge to start spelling before they 'know' the spellings iyswim. So dd has written things like 'I like tmrtosos' - I like tomato sauce, or 'Vu prinses and vu jagn' - the princess and the dragon.

As they read more, they learn more complicated and irregular spellings.

mrz, no phonics as far as we know. At last parents evening there was mention of it in the future but for the time being it seems all ORT (reading a book a night) and these spelling tests learned by rote.

We recently saw DD's teacher and she said that this class - on average - was behind last year's group due to less emphasis on reading/writing in their nursery due to change of policy.

DD can read ORT well but we've started to read chapter books at bedtime and we are frustrated that she can't grasp new words because she can't (or won't) sound out.

Aren't they using phonics for reading though? Not at all? I'd be amazed if they had bypassed phonics altogether!

dd (in Reception) never gets homework other than books to read. As to whether she could do that exercise I'm not sure but I am sure she couldn't do it totally independently. She'd need my help. I don't think it would be an exercise she'd be particularly interested in doing either.

It sounds hard homework for a Reception child. Could you write the words onto a separate piece of paper, add in a few link words, then cut them out so that your DS can stick the words into a sentence. That way he doesn't have to write them out. If he is struggling reading the words help him look for the initial sound of the word he needs.

Butkin, I thought all schools taught reading through phonics these days? Dd wouldn't be able to write anything without being able to sound out letters / long vowels, i.e. she wrote under her picture today 'I sor a rabbit wen I went bie the hows' (I saw a rabbit when I went by the house) which is, apparently, ok spelling for Reception ... ?

Ds could do this (but to be fair they start school at 5 in NZ) a lot of his class mates wouldn't be able to. He wouldn't have done the colouring though!

In his writing he wouldn't have even got the words written down, they have to have a go at getting the starting sound. But they do it in class with a trained teacher to guide them - not at home with a parent, after they have been at school and they are tired.

For example ds's first sentence was "I kt my f" which meant I cut my finger. I was amazed how quick that became recognisable sentences.

I now have the problem that his reading is about Year 3, and so the teacher gives him worksheets for a Year 3 child that go with the books. He may be able to read the book, he will understand it, but no way can he tell you the positive and negative things in the book, especially as the negatives are implied. I just let him scribble rubbish on the page if he wants or ignore it if he wants, or by the time he actually is 8 the worksheets will be ridiculous.

My DS2 could probably do this but he is pretty good with motor skills (and has best pencil grip of any of my 3).

I help in an FS2 class and I would say there were about 5 children in it who could produce something reasonable from this worksheet.

It would totally defeat at least 10 of them. I think it's a bit much to set this sort of thing for a 5yo.

I would chat to him about the sentences he might want to write then help him write the words. But write a note to the teacher saying what you've done or she may get misleading impressions.

We don't do spelings till yr 1.

Enid, amazed at yr DD with the weekend news! The TA in one of our classes said to me t'other day that it's not many years since even at this stage of the year all they would be writing was CVC words, whereas now some of them can write 3-4 sentences about their school trip (eg: I liect the pigs. I sor a hors. I had a snac.) She clearly thought there had been massive progress over the years - but I hasten to add that plenty of the kids in class would write just a word or two.

I know many schools where they do weekly news on a Monday (it's quite an old idea pre NC) but find few of the children are actually writing the news themselves merely copying words supplied by the teacher in response to what they have told her.