reading fluency

[bochead]

We are coming to the end of the Headsprout Early reading programme.

DO people recommend going straight onto the second product or taking a break first to consolidate fluency first? What have other people done?

If so does anyone have any good book suggestions for a 9 year old lad reading at this level? I'm looking for book ideas that don't challenge DS's literal thinking too much at this stage to allow him to gain a bit of confidence, and build up his technical reading speed. It's his birthday in July and with two retired teachers for Grannies books are always an easy request for pressies.

Has he read all of the accompanying books and completed every single 'speak out loud' activity?

We've gone thru it properly, doing the speak out loud stuff, stopping and taking time to dig into specific issues when needed, reading all the books etc, etc. It's taken much longer than I originally envisaged (as he could VERY haltingly read when we started) but has been worth the effort.

Did you print off the books and get him to read them out loud to you?

There is a benchmark assessment to measure whether child ready for HRC. Roughly speaking with HER you learn to read and with HRC you read to learn. We originally used language for thinking as a bridge between the two with the sim of getting the child to answer questions based on text alone but it had been so successful we often run them concurrently.

The time factor is an important point. A log of kids quite simply need more practice doing things and temptation in schools is to sweep along, ignoring the fact the kid hasn't mastered something. You can't put a roof on a house with poor foundations. Stop in your tracks and sort it out otherwise it will only loom up again and again to bite you on the bum.

I've lost count if the amount of people who I come across who earnestly work on time and money when a kid hasn't mastered basic addition. I watched someone earnestly showing a child a 10p and a 20p the other day and asking which was the biggest.

Jesus wept.
What hope have out kids got bring 'taught' by people who haven't a clue?

This year has been spent checking the foundations of the 3R's and then plugging some gaping holes in fundamentals generally tbh.

Next year I expect DS to show "progress" as per standard clumsy measurements.

Yes he's read all the books, most several times tbh. We've been doing language for thinking concurrently. (Didn't know that I shouldn't)

He does OK on the standard assessment for HRC that they provide on the website. 160 words read with 95% accuracy. Does this mean I should just take the plunge and go for it?

I don't suppose you know how that maps to the NC do you?

Have you seen the new primary maths national curriculum? Utter madness and if implemented as decreed it will mean foundations built on sand for all kids, not just those with SN.

That is good to hear on all counts! Regarding doing LFT at the same time as HER , there is no 'shouldn't' about it rest assured! Just that many day they can't do both concurrently so I often suggest they do one the t'other but personally speaking I'd go for as much input as possible!

The NC is, as always, full of things that 'should' be taught but zero guidance on the HOW. If I was a teacher or a TA I would be really pissed off tbh. Constantly told what to do but given bugger all guidance o. How to do it. If j ask someone to do something I always make sure they know how to do it and how to measure progress ( or lack of). This is the big I love most about my job.the nuts and bolts of the job in hand.

Regarding HRC benchmark assessment then yes, give it a whirl! PM me again when you get going and I will tell you how we track progress using colour coding on a map which seems to work pretty well.

S

Some highly though of teaching colleagues are using 'B Squared' now, which, from what I have see. Is a pretty nifty way to track progress against the NC and quite friendly from a behavioural perspective.

Poor teachers and schools! Crumbling under the weight of so much meaningless paperwork. A PE teacher was telling me the other day how she has to show evidence of using numeracy and 'exploratory learning' in Her classes. With regard to former, maybe if it wax taught properly to begging with, there would be no need to maintain. The Potemkinesque facade. With regard to latter. As she helpfully pointed out to her tormentor, exploratory learning with regard to throwing balls would probably result in the separation of someone from their teeth.

Someone really needs to document this ongoing sanity I the firm of a book. A policemen did one a few years back. It wax brilliant. The madness of the public sector, drowning in its ie. bureaucratic ordure.

I wouldn't be a state primary teacher nowadays for all the tea in China tbh! Most primary schools only allocate one hour a week to PE. Wouldn't it simply be OK for the kids to learn the rules of cricket and work up a sweat for that single hour? Cricket rules contain maths if the teacher has time to explain them. Exploratory learning = can I catch that ball, bowl Tommy out etc?

It seems their days are filled with everything EXCEPT teaching. It's amazing how much paperwork is generated that tells you NOTHING! Must be completely soul destroying.

He's plodding his way through the "Lassie" series at the moment,(his choice not mine as it's tough going!) - once we've done that I'll deffo give you a shout if you don't mind?

Quite.
So grim for all concerned and imagine being a head trying to keep track if it all. Sucks all the satisfaction and joy out if learning. No, not at all. Fire away when you are ready. It's lovely to hear of your boy's progress. He is very lucky to have you as a mother.

"I've lost count if the amount of people who I come across who earnestly work on time and money when a kid hasn't mastered basic addition. I watched someone earnestly showing a child a 10p and a 20p the other day and asking which was the biggest."

This is why (in part) I'm thinking of HE DD2. Her teacher pulls me aside and says 'DD2 can't count money...' Well, no. But then she doesn't understand what the number bonds to 10 she learned actually means in practice. She doesn't understand that if 3 and 7 are number bonds, then you know that 3+7=10, 10-3=7 and 10-7=3. She doesn't know how to use that information to get from 7 to 10 and then use that to work out the difference between 7 and 13 ('bridging through 10'), etc.

I said, at a meeting, that I'm concerned that they're building a wall with massive holes in it and that wall will fall down at some point.

That's EXACTLY the kind of maths gap we've been filling this year Lougle !

Technically on paper DS doesn't appear to have made much progress thru the NC levels this year - but all the holes in the swiss cheese are filled iyswim.

Next year we'll be building on that nice solid foundation so that DS actually understands the maths to the level the official paperwork declares.

A combination of a very spiky profile and the "lets learn money before you can do number bonds to 10" teaching approach moondog refers to meant DS was effectively being set up to fail at maths in the long term. Going backwards before going forwards like we have leaves me much more confident for his future prospects of eventually getting that all important C at GCSE (even if he ends up taking it a year or two later than his peers).

Gah! It's so nice find others who feel this way . It's quite isolating feeling like the lone voice of reason sometimes.

zzzz- thanks for that suggestion. I want DS to get that reading is fun I suppose.

DD2 was trying some bridging through ten last month and I'd rubbed out her old answers and put new numbers in the question area. She appeared to look carefully at the problem, paused, then triumphantly worked her way down the sheet. I thought 'my goodness, she's got it!' Then I took the sheet and every answer was wrong! I calmly said 'tell me how you worked these out.' She said 'I could see the answers on the paper so I traced them '

She was most mystified when I told her that they were wrong because I'd changed the numbers.

Oh yeah, DD2 can't actually tell either. Her teacher said to me a few weeks ago that she'd asked her and "well frankly, I couldn't make head nor tail of it." It was the speed, confidence, yet total failure that made me ask