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Yr 1 getting 8 books a week

39 replies

redcarpet · 06/03/2010 09:33

My dd is in year and she has been bringing home 2 Oxford Reading Tree books,1 from New Way and another 1 from guided reading making them 4. She gets them on Mondays and they get changed on Fridays when she gets 4 more.

She also gets 10 spellings and homework on Fridays. She is getting extra help with her reading in a programme called Early Literacy Support and gets a folder with more homework.

Now my daughter is completely bored and says that she "hates reading". Is it normal to be getting 8 books, homework, spellings + more homework at this stage?

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lljkk · 07/03/2010 10:42

Teacher & TA at our school doesn't keep on top of it, DS brings home new books and I write the titles in his reading record, and I listen to him read (except I am pleased to report that increasingly he reads a lot by himself). Still, Teacher & TA not much involved!

amidaiwish · 07/03/2010 10:53

DD brings home a new book every time she has finished it. sometimes it is one a night (not thursdays where they choose a book to be read by parents to them), other times she takes a week to read it. it doesn't seem to matter.

the books she has now are quite long, when she was going through the ORT levels then she would often bring home 2 books a night, so yes 8 books/week, but it didn't take that long to read them and we wouldn't always do both books a night.

Are you sure your school isn't giving you that many because you are getting through that many and they don't want to hold your dd back? just read one or part of one, as much or as little as you think appropriate and i am sure it will be fine.

DD1 also gets spellings and a maths worksheet each week. she loves school.

gorionine · 07/03/2010 10:55

Ds3 is a having some difficulty with his reading. His teacher gives him 2 books a week but at the end of the month she gives him for one WE all the books he has read that month to go over again. It seems a lot but it has made a very big difference to his reading. He reads morefluently (because he remembers the stories) and it boosts his his confidence a lot. He is quite happy to much trough all of them in a couple of sessions with me. This week he also had spellings and a math sheet. There is not usually that much written homework for him , I think he gets extra if he did not manage to finish something in school (bettr than missing play time IMHO, like DS2 sometimes has to).

I cannot thank his teacher enough, she has been supporting him a lot in school too and on last parents evening she was very happy to tell me that he has shot up with his reading and incidently his writing. It is hard work, I canoot deny that but when see him smilling that he has managed to go through a book with not so much help anymore it makes it all worth it.

It is working with DS but does not seem to work so well with your DD if she is now desliking reading. Maybe the teacher should change her strategy with her?

jenduff · 07/03/2010 11:01

DD Y1 - two ORT books - one start of week, one end of week then she's also allowed to choose one from the library once a week. 10 spellings every few weeks - with proper spelling tests

time4tipple · 07/03/2010 11:08

OMG! My daughter is Y1 also. She brings home 1 ORT book per week plus 1 school library book. At school she reads an additional book with her reading group each week. Homework is not given every week but is normally a printed sheet with a maths exercise. TBH I think I would lose the plot if I had more than 1 ORT to endure read every week... DD is an avid reader, she happily chooses to read several books a week. These are always her choice however & if she was having to read set books I think she would become reluctant.

EVye · 07/03/2010 18:43

Blimey. My DD gets 2 ORT books once a week, and one library book when they remember.

MrsMatey · 07/03/2010 19:10

We get 6 books a week max - they are changed when the parent signs them off as read - no pressure, I think. We mostly read all that we were given but my kids loved to read and they often read more from library books...for a child that doesn't enjoy reading, 8 books a week sounds like torture.

ouryve · 07/03/2010 19:25

8 books?! That's ridiculous. No wonder she's fed up.

DS1 is only given a new book once a week and because he is way ahead of the rest of the class is encouraged to choose for himself from the "level 10" basket. He's having difficulties with school at the moment, anyhow and has been refusing to select his book, amongst other things, so I tend to choose a couple and he'll read one of them, or both. Some of the books at his level are difficult to read in one sitting, so it might take him a few days to get through them, anyhow.

As far as other homework is concerned, his class get spellings, once a week, but DS1 doesn't since he knows them already and the class gets a maths homework sheet, midweek. I think any more than this would be difficult for a lot of kids, because by the time they get home and have their dinners, they're pretty shattered.

rainbowinthesky · 07/03/2010 19:26

ouryve - why doesnt your ds get spellings? I choose dd's spellings as she knew the ones given out.

Lycraphobe · 07/03/2010 20:16

That is too much, no wonder she is bored (and how do you cope with the boredom of listening to her ploughing through them?)

My DS gets one at a time, changing them daily usually so 5 a week, but if I don't write in his reading record for whatever reason, then it is assumed he hasn't done it and he gets the books again. He's at / near the top of his class.

waitingforglasto · 07/03/2010 20:20

Bloody hell. My ds is in year 1 and we get a new book when the old one is finishes - about 10 pages a night - so every 2/3 days and a library book every week - so only one reading book at a time. His books are now about 30 pages and so how would you get through one in one night without extreme boredom and moaning?

About 8-10 spellings per week and some maths occasionally over the weekend and holidays - that's it.

Gallivanter · 07/03/2010 22:19

DD started school in Year 1 recently; we're new to the UK. She loves reading, as do we, and her reading was good before she started school. Based on what she arrives home with in her bag, she's able to read ORT level 11 aloud without having practiced it in advance. As far as I can see, she reads aloud about once a week with a TA. All well and good.

What's the story with the reading record? When she started, we asked the school whether we were supposed to be filling it out, but didn't get a conclusive answer for some reason, so to date we haven't written it ever. Should we be writing in it? How often? Does it apply to books she reads or listens to outside school (i.e. completely independent of school) too? Or just to the reading scheme books?

While I'm at it, her teacher encourages writing a lot and DD now writes great little stories with completely phonetic spelling . They haven't had a single spelling list or spelling test though, as far as I know. Again, I'm not worried about it, but this thread is a bit surprising because so many other kids seem to have them. Any idea what the norm is here?

amidaiwish · 07/03/2010 22:56

Gallivanter - at DDs school the reading record is just for recording what they have read/any comments on the assigned books from school. just a way of communicating with the teacher re the page you got to and any issues.

phonetic spelling is positively encouraged but then they have now started spelling tests, so a mixture of the two i guess is acceptable with an expectation that as the spelling tests and their reading develops they will move from phonetic to correct spelling.

Gallivanter · 10/03/2010 22:03

Thank you, amidaiwish.

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