Year 1 reading question (sorry!)

[MollieO]

Ds is on Stage 2 ORT to 'boost his confidence'. Easy to read and pretty boring stories. He reads them well and it takes about 3 minutes to read one 16 page book.

Last night his reading homework was 2 stage 1+ books of 8 pages each. He read both whilst he took his shoes off - his choice as he grabbed them out of his reading folder and read them in the hallway.

I am already struggling to understand why his teacher thinks his confidence will be boosted by easy reading material but I am flummoxed to see he has dropped down a level despite reading Stage 2 books very well.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why his teacher maybe doing this? We have parents' evening next week so I shall obviously ask but in the meantime I'm curious to know if anyone can help me understand.

By way of background ds is a very confident child and does his best when he is challenged. He does his work at school and at home and complains about it being boring and/or easy. We did have difficulties at the start of term getting him to do homework but this was resolved about 2 or 3 weeks into term. His teacher has said twice now that she has never had a pupil like ds (she is an experienced teacher) and it seems to me that she really hasn't got his measure.

It might be that he doesn't like reading out loud to the teacher.
when i was at school i really really hated doing it, even though i was a good reader.

maybe you should ask the teacher what the thinking is behind it?

I will ask at parents' evening but we have 5 more nights of homework between now and then. His teacher isn't very approachable and I am keen not to come across as a pushy parent. I'm hoping that a teacher on MN might be able to suggest the rationale.

I should add that ds reads to the teacher/TA every day and gets very positive comments from them in his reading diary.

Is he understanding what he is reading? Comprehension is as important as being able to physically read the words out loud.

No indication that he doesn't understand. One of his teacher's criticisms has been that he spends too much time talking about the story rather than reading it when he does reading with her.

Hi - I just had similar - see thread further down board entitled year 1 and reading. DD in year one and they were giving her ORT level 3 which she could read very easily. It probably is just to give him praise and to have all the class on a similar level.

I called to make an appointment with the teacher to discuss reading - and guess what without even appointment, they send home level 4 books, still easy for her but definately step in right direction. We are getting 6 books a week so hopefully this will help us move through the levels quite fast.

We did a lot of reading at home so her reading was improving just not because of the school books.

I would make appointment and say that the books are not improving his confidence, rather they are demotivating. Take with the stuff he is reading at home and leave with them - ask them to hear him reading these books to her etc.

According to the comment in the reading diary tonight it is done for vocab knowledge. Now I really don't understand how giving two books with less words in total than one book actually aids vocab [thick emoticon].

Difficult to say that the books aren't improving ds's confidence when there doesn't seem to be any problem with his confidence in the first place unfortunately. He will do as little work as he can get away with but he will work hard if he given the work to do. I'm not sure that his teacher really understands that about him.

why not just write back in reading diary that he knew all the vocab (if he did?) and could you have something with more words?

We have parents' evening on Thursday and as the note that came back yesterday filled an entire page of the readind diary I think I will wait and speak to her in person. Unfortunately this point will be added to an ever growing list of concerns.

Oh dear. I plan to take some of the books she is reading at home to the parents night, its in 2 weeks.... although as they put her up a stage this week, and we are now getting 6 books a week its less of a problem.

Also I recommend buying (can get cheaper on ebay) some of the ORT stage 3 and 4 read at home books and then you can work out from that which level he can comfortably at at.

I wrote a note in ds's reading diary today to say that I cannot see the point of giving him reading material with very simple vocab which he already knows. We have had issues before with him finding the reading dull and then completely refusing to do his homework. I think we are bordering on that happening again. I think that the parents' evening meeting might be quite lively!

Sounds like the teacher is trying to keep everyone in the class at the same level and doesn't know how to deal with a pupil who is far ahead. If he is complaining about being bored, that is a big alarm bell that a decent teacher should take notice of - if a bright kid is not kept challenged they will get bored and disruptive. He needs more challenging work in all areas by the sound of it and if the teacher had any sense she would make the effort to provide this rather than having all the bother of dealing with a disruptive, disaffected child in her class. You really need to get this across to her in the parents meeting. If you get no joy, speak to the head.

Just a note - the "read at home" books do not match the levels at school. They are great books but you will find that they are further ahead than the read at home books.

Sounds a bit daft to me as well.

I wondering, after your later post about vocab, whether your DS hasn't got all the key words rather than having trouble reading the books. There are certain words that my DS needs to know before he can move onto the next level (also Yr 1) and he seems to be stuck on his level for a long time because he hasn't got a couple of those words - he seems to have a mental block on them even though generally he reads pretty well.

It is frustrating though. Roll on parents' evening!

I don't think he is ahead at all. There are definitely brighter children in the class and I've seen far more advanced reading books than he is getting. The books we have at home are exactly the same as the ones he has in school. I reckon it all stems back to a period of bad behaviour at the start of term that has completely coloured the teacher's opinion of ds. Almost as if she has written him off because of it.

It is all a bit of a mystery really and it doesn't help that I never actually get to see ds's teacher. I drop off one day a week but have to leave about 5 mins before the bell. She arrives about 2 mins before the bell so our paths never cross unless I have the day off (which is very rare to do other than school holidays).

I think I will have to be brave, don my flak jacket and be prepared for a healthy debate at parents' evening. The head is very approachable and I would be more than happy to have a meeting with her if we cannot get this resolved.

Niecie, no idea about key words. The books we are getting have 6 words. We have had consecutive nights with two books having the word 'dog' as the main word. Seems very very basic to me.

By way of contrast he gets 10 spellings to learn a week and one of the words for this week was 'chicken'. I would have thought that if his teacher thinks he is capable of spelling 'chicken' he is more than capable of reading 'dog'!

Each stage (up to stage 5) in ORT has a number of key words that are to be learnt alongside the reading books. Ds bought home these words and had to learn them and be able to read them in different sentences etc before he could move onto the next stage and get his new set of keywords. If I remember Stage one is the main characters ie Kipper Chip etc. Stage 2 then adds in about 15 new words to be learnt including wanted, pushed, pulled etc.

If a child has not grasps these words they do not move on to the next stage.

I will ask about key words. We've never got a 'key word' list that I'm aware of. The spelling list is only spellings, no comprehension required to be demonstrated although all the words ds has had are ones that he knows and understands.

Not sure why if he was reading Stage 3 at the end of reception he is now reading stage 1+ in year 1. He read very basic books at the start of year 1 (one word per page). This progressed to Stage 2 Songbirds and now we are back to Stage 1+ Songbirds. No lack of comprehension that I can glean and the TA's comments in his reading diary are always that he read well. The songbirds series don't have Biff, Chip, Kipper although we have those books at home too (we have a lot of books).

This thread has given me lots of questions to ask his teacher!

Actually, not knowing the key words doesn't really explain why your DS is going backwards. Presumably he knew the keywords at some point to get onto level 2. It makes no sense to go backwards.

It only really explains why he isn't going forwards.

We have a set of words to learn from the key word list which are appropriate to DS's level of reading rather than having those words only in the books. Sort of little flash cards although you are encouraged to play games with them rather than just flash them.

If he is stuck on certain words, you would think the teacher would at least tell you what they are so that he could move on because it doesn't sound like he is generally lacking in any way.

Very puzzling - maybe the teacher does have a thing about your DS. Surely she should see though, that he isn't going to behave well if he is bored all the time.

I think his behaviour is okay now although I stand to be corrected on that at parent's evening. He does his homework, gets his spellings correct and I've not been contacted about any behavioural issues since the first two weeks of term.

I have got his eyesight and hearing checked at the teacher's behest. She thinks he has processing issues and doesn't listen/understand, lacks confidence and completely lacks motivation. Can't say I'm surprised based on the work he is getting.

None of his teacher's description is replicated at home at all so it has been difficult to really understand what she is getting at. His GP laughed when I listed the issues ds's teacher had but understands my wish to ensure we cover all bases just in case there are actually issues.

I am waiting for a referral to a community paediatrician and then a child psychologist. The GP knows ds very well and has done so since birth (ds very sickly child until he started school) and thinks he is a very bright little boy.

Was he reading Stage 3 or stage 3 songbirds? They are actually 2 different schemes. Songbirds are a scheme aimed to help those that are having difficulty with phonics. Once they are grasped this they move back onto Trunk books. Therefore is is quite normal to go from stage 3 songbirds to stage one Trunk books (Biff and Chip etc.)

Songbirds isn't a scheme aimed at those having difficulty with phonics it is a phonics reading scheme written for children who are being taught phonics and children don't move back onto anything they move on. Sorry Flounder that may be the way your school is working but that isn't how it is meant to be used.

He hasn't read stage 3 at all since he started in year 1. He is now re-reading the same books he started on in Reception. When he read them in reception that was a backwards move from what he has been doing at nursery.

I put that down to the change of school, different methods etc but no idea what is going on now. His teacher has a very good reputation so I'm hoping that this is just a blip in ds's time with her. She wants him to be assessed at school but he is too young - apparently it can't be done before he is 5.5 so not before next term. I can't remember the name of the test other than it will be done with the SENCO.

Now I'm actually rather cross. Had a reply to my note in ds's reading diary. Apparently ds has been given easier books because he is struggling. Completely different to what she wrote last week - different books to increase vocab.

She has now suggested that I go into school so ds ccan read to me in front of her.

I don't have a problem if he is struggling but I wish she had told me rather than dressing it up as something else. He does well if challenged but will do the bear minimum if he can get away with it and I don't think his teacher has grasped that about him.

MollieO the teacher must be quite concerned if she is talking about test with the SENCO.