crappy teachers

[jellyfingers]

last year my ds was in class 2(aged 6) and was really struggling with reading, so i was dragged in to class after school one afternoon, and the teacher told me i had to spend more time at home with him reading and
basically teach him to read ? i also have a 3 year old dd and at the time heavily pregnant ( im not a teacher for a start and to be honest i dont know how to teach a child to read properly) surely that is why you send them to school.but when i asked the teacher wheather they read with the children she said no because they didnt have time .he is now in class 3 and turning 7 in a couple of months and still can't read
has anyone got any suggestions on what i should do ?

Jellyfingers, the reason I asked if you were in England is because you say he is in class 3 and turning 7 in a few months. In England, children have normally turned 7 before the September in which they start Year 3.

I assume class 3 may well be the school's own class number system - 1 class a year would mean class 3 was Y2 (3rd year)

True, Hulababy, but a bit confusing for the children isn't it.
Now class three remember you are in Year Two this year....

My son was a late reader. Like you, I could see he was quite bright, but he ended up getting a 'thing' about it and would lie on the floor and say he was stupid and couldn't do it which broke my heart Anyway... he eventually got inspired by Anthony Horowitz when he was 7 and has loved reading ever since. He's a total bookworm now. So... just trying to say don't despair! He'll suddenly get it and everything will click into place.
p.s. Horowitz is great for boys. As well as hearing him read - maybe read him a chapter a day of something really thrilling as a reward? Something that'll really knock his socks off so he can see that reading isn't always boring (though Biffy and co sometimes are.

Well see what your teacher recommends and if you are not happy with it, try and sort it out yourself before he gets totally frustrated.

If the books from school are way too difficult, I wouldn't use them. Get your own. Since he is struggling with some of the letter combinations, I would personally consider going back to the beginning and starting over from scratch. I know some Mners who live overseas have been teaching their dc to read English with a book called 100 lessons or something like that. Not sure exactly, I haven't used it. Maybe you could have a google from amazon and see if you could spend 5 minutes a day on something like that till he catches up a bit.

and don't worry too much, I'm sure if you go nice and slow with no stressing, it will come right. There are quite a few countries where dc don't start school till they're 7 and they learn to read just fine in a fraction of the time at that age.

LadyGlencoraPalliser - I think children cope better than us adults in these situations though

Where I work we have classes 1-3 in reception, classes 4-6 in Y1 and classes 7-9 in Y2. In DD's school they have the whole preprep and prep years but DD is really good at knowing what year they relate to to Y1, Y2, etc.

I hadn't come across that system before, Hulababy. In the DDs' schools they call them by the year group number and teacher's initials.

I guess they all work differently, but honestly the children seem to have no problems with it.

That starfall site looks very good but is american as are the spellings and pronounciation does anyone know of a british equivalent?

I suggest you sit down every night with a book for 20 minutes, and get him to read it to you.Use his school book. Correct the words he gets wrong, praise him when he gets it right, and that's your job done.

Oh I see, school books too hard. Tell the school that then., and get them to send simpler books home.

im lucky if i can get him to sit for two minutes let alone twenty . but i will just have to keep trying

TBH at this stage I'd think 20 minutes might be a bit too long - 5 minutes to start with and work up.