Bright child getting bored at reception

[zansi]

Hi this is my first post and really need some advice from experienced mums. My 5 year old daughter recently started reception at a local small state comununity school. She has really enjoyed it so far but is now getting bored.She is already a fluent reader and is good at basic Maths too. However, even though the teacher knows this, as a class they are learning beginner phonics which she finds very boring as she knows this already. She told me she asked the teacher to give her something new to do and her teacher says no, she has to do what the class are doing. I feel my daughter is just being ignored without being stretched further in Maths and English. I have already spoken to the teacher about this but don't want to be seen as a pushy parent.I am doing stuff at home with her but don't have much time and feel the school should be addressing my concerns. any advice on what to do please

I'm with mrz. My answer to "I'm bored" (if in fact she is saying that) would be to suggest areas for her to stretch herself in. amidaiwish gives an excellent example. For another - if they do phonics worksheets which are "too easy" for her then she should have plenty of time to do a beautiful job of colouring the picture afterwards. I know that even DC who could read going into reception were made to do phonics at DS's school as most (note, not all) early readers are recognising patterns, and don't have a secure enough grounding in phonics to see them through when the vocabulary gets beyond pattern-matching bounds.

Incidentally, those early readers are now (Y3) not noticeably ahead of most of the rest of the class at all .

Incidentally, I learned the hard way that "I'm bored" was DS-speak for "the teacher makes me actually do stuff properly" (learned after I demanded a meeting with the class teacher as to why my PFB was being allowed to get bored )

you can learn to read fluently [word recognition] without doing phonics. Phonics are useful as help one learn to spell too, but ds reads most words without any phonics at all.

Just to clarify my daughter says she finds the learning the phonics boring because she already knows it. She loves school otherwise, plays loads and has made great friends. She didnt ask the teacher for more challenging work those were my words. She asked the teacher to give her something else to do whilst the others are doing the phonics because she finds that part boring. I think a lot of it is to do with being one of the eldest in her class. Obviously the younger ones need that input, but for the older ones who perhaps need more stimulation I feel they should give them appropriate work for their level otherwise their enthusiasm will wane.

pofarced - unfortunately word recognition doesn't work for a huge percentage of children which thankfully why it phonics are so widely used now.

DD1 knew all the phonics sounds when she started school. But she never complained about doing them again. Because the teacher made it fun (and truth be told, she probably enjoyed showing off that she knew them all ).

And I agree with mrz that learning to sit with the others and join in while they do something for (hopefully) just 10 mins or so is an important skill. It's a social skill - understanding that not everyone knows the same as you, joining in with your peers, avoiding distracting people by wandering off and doing something else.

There's no reason why her enthusiasm for learning should wane, if there are plenty of other interesting things going on in the classroom.

By zansi Thu 21-Jan-10 14:30:18
Obviously the younger ones need that input,

No ALL the children need the input as a class.

How many phoneme/grapheme correspondence does your daughter know at this point?

No I'm not advocating getting rid of phonics I'm just saying it is possible to read without them, ds has without any intervention from me, but not specially advanced, has trouble with his writing.

"Obviously the younger ones need that input"

Let's stereotype shall we . There will be older children who need that input and younger ones who can already read. Of course on average the older ones might be more ahead with things but I am getting a bit tired of all the generalisations that younger reception kids are behind etc. etc.

In my reception class the youngest child (birthday 25th August) is by far the most able reader and he loves whole class phonics

While we are dealing with stereotypes yes the best readers are also boys

do you know a lot about learning to read, pofarced? It certainly doesn't sound like it

Why on earth are you being insulting pointysaysrelax? My son learned to read without phonics. I said I was not advocating getting rid of phonics in the classroom. What on earth is your problem?

But since you are being so rude, I might as well point out that a friend's father is an educational psychologist who is of the opinion word recognition is a much better way of teaching children to read than phonics, but hey, you must know best. I don't even agree with his opinion, I was just sharing how ds learned to read totally unprovoked by me, but don't let that stop you being a lunatic so rude.

Have you asked your dd about the other children who know their phonics, what are they doing, do they get bored? She really won't be the only one in the class!

Po I wonder if it varies for different dcs. My ds is a very visual learner and I think that IF I had to choose word recognition or phonics (and I don't as he is doing a mix), I would absolutely go with word recognition.
But some kids thrive on phonics. Vive la difference. And maybe that's why most schools do seem to do a mix of both.

Mrz - my thoughts exactly (as ever).

I am sorry to have jumped on that point re younger ones whoever said that but I am really fed up with everyone assuming summer borns are behind academically. They need to meet my ds

If he's behind on anything - apart from height (!) - it's social confidence, so he does conform to one of the other stereotypes I suppose.

I have never said phonics is not a good thing. I have never said phonics doesn't work. I said my ds learned to read [on is own] without phonics.

My DD1 is in year one and has nearly finished the reading bands. She would happily go back to reception, she had so much fun.

Agree with those annoyed by "younger ones need help" comment.

One of the very very best readers I have known in FS2 was born Aug 20 or so. Also yes! he was a boy. Whaddya know.

And in fact the older children are not always ahead - it's rather dangerous to assume they will be, surely?

The human brain is designed to be very good at recognising patterns and applying a myriiad of rulkes sub conciously.For example all the brainiacs in the world cannot produce a computer which can identify a dog s well as a 3 year old child can.By learning word recognition the brain gradually and largely subconciously builds up its own phonics rules.And I think there is a massive danger that too much phonics teaching could interfere with this

The human brain is designed to be very good at recognising patterns and applying a myriiad of rulkes sub conciously.For example all the brainiacs in the world cannot produce a computer which can identify a dog s well as a 3 year old child can.By learning word recognition the brain gradually and largely subconciously builds up its own phonics rules.And I think there is a massive danger that too much phonics teaching could interfere with this"

This theory is outdated

When they used Word Recognition programmes in the 60s children like my Dh never learnt to read. Finally he was sent to a remedial class when he was 10 to learn phonics. His headmistress told his mother that he would never learn to read using Look and Say but she was not allowed to teach anything else at the time.
I could see the same problem happening with DS when we had sight words to learn , he couldn't do them, but thankfully he had been taught jolly phonics as well.

My DD just absorbed reading, she didn't need to be taught to read, she could just do it. I suspect what every programme they used with her, she would have had no problems with.

Word recognition just doesn't work for a lot of children, they need to be given the building bricks of phonics to work out words, one they become familiar with the words they then use word recognition.

So are you saying that your DD asked the teacher if she could do something else during phonics time, because she was bored?

Not surprised the teacher said no.

Maybe just a simple breakdown in communication. But I do wonder how much of this she is getting from you. Both my two have always been ahead of the game at school, despite being August-borns, but I have never once heard either of them report being bored. But then, it's not a word I encourage being bandied about.

"Obviously the younger ones need that input, but for the older ones who perhaps need more stimulation I feel they should give them appropriate work for their level otherwise their enthusiasm will wane."
Before you go in to complain, remember that the teacher will have spent a great deal of time training for this job, and probably knows a little more about running a reception classroom than you do.

What do you mean the theory id outdated.You mean the human brain can't recognise patterns better than a computer anymore ?
Granted not all children would learn this way but I did my parents and siblings and all my DC have but why should the m,ajority suffer because of the few like your DH who couldn't get it ?

The majority are not suffering now, a lot more children suffered under word recognition and whole language schemes. Prisons are full of people who never learnt to read because of such schemes. It is an outdated theory. It works for a few children but not as well as phonics. When phonics have been introduced to schools reading ages have gone up years in a few months.

The latest thinking is Parallel letter recognition.

Well our literacy rates are still behind other countries in Europe, and the reason suspected is that we try to make children read too early and then they associate reading with anxiety. Children in Europe don't generally learn to read formally until 6 or 7. Presumably just like here though some can read much earlier, and some struggle.

Can you tell me more about parallel letter recognition bruffin?