Why do some parents have such low expectations?

[CandODad]

School expectation is for children to read at home five times a week.

Class rule is at least three times or you attend a twenty minute lunch club on a Friday.

I had a parent trying to complain that I was robbing their child of play time and should blame them not the child?

I pointed out it wasn't about blame but learning a life skill but they honestly thought there was no issue to a child with no SEND issues being eight but reading at a five year olds level.

How do I resolve this?

are they reading or barking at print?

I believe I said reading, not barking. Part of the idea to ask questions to show understanding ergo reading.

Thanks to the few that have actually kept to the point of my post though rather than treating it as the usual AIBU rants.

but they honestly thought there was no issue to a child with no SEND issues being eight but reading at a five year olds level.
That sounds exactly like something DS1's teacher would have said last year. Except it would have been complete bullshit. I am more than aware his reading/spelling/handwriting is crap. I spent a year telling the bitch her that he had mild dyslexia just like me, undiagnosed. She refused to entertain the idea despite being head of SEND for the school. Phonics made it extra hard for me to help him, phonics is my worst nightmare, blind leading the blind. DS refused to read at home and it would take half an hour to get 5 minutes work out of him and we would all be in tears by the end of it. All I ever got told when I asked for help, for nearly 3 years, from the moment I realised we were struggling was 'Nothing wrong, just read more at home'. Fucking useless lazy arse women, there is more than one way to learn to read and they would have taught more than one way in their long careers. 3 weeks in a new school and his teacher pulled me to one side as he tentatively asked if I thought DS and myself had dyslexia. So clearly not in his notes ether. He's come on amazingly since leaving the teachers that only have one method and have no compassion for the individual child's situation.

Completely unacceptable to take away children's free time.

Year 3 ao 7 up lose 5mins of lunch if they don't read enough during the week, if they don't get enough right in spellings, if they don't hand in English/spelling/maths homework.....

Astro55 Don't assume my children don't like reading. My children love reading and have excelled through their reading. However, I have never forced it upon them, I have only encouraged to them read at their pleasure. Of course my children will read their school books but if they have had a full on week and don't feel like reading one particular evening then that is fine, I wouldn't expect them to be reprimanded at school because it!

child with no SEND issues being eight but reading at a five year olds level

If an eight year old child is reading at a 5 year old level and there is no SEND, I'd be way more concerned that hitherto the teaching has not met the child's need. It's the teaching that has failed the child not the parenting. I would be appalled by any school could let a child fall that far behind without automatically offering intervention work.

At DC's school that would be in the form of alternative reading schemes and voluntary dyslexia based programme that are offered to any child who they felt would benefit, regardless of it they have SN or not.

The simple fact is that child could read 20 times a week but without the right specialist intervention it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference. Your just making that kids life miserable.

I've got two kids. One has always flatly refused to read anything for years. At age 10, I could count the number of books she had read from cover to cover on two hands and a number of them were comics. She's one of the best readers in the school. My son has gone from at least 2 years behind (SN) to one year ahead thanks to the right interventions. It is only in the last 3-4 months he has picked up a book and chosen to read it. He's read lots though, mostly by turning on the subtitles on TV shows and instructions on games and computer games. The brightest person I know (talks several languages etc) really wasn't into reading, he only voluntarily started when as a grown up he downloaded a kindle app and found the classics were on there for free. As far as I know he still doesn't read books.

I find we have such a shallow view of how you can practice reading or what counts as reading. And such hyper inflated ideals about the educational merits of enforced reading

Why don't all parents read with their children?

Some are weak/non-readers themselves.
Some are hard-working parents with other children and run out of time.
Some don't want a battle with their children.
Some have a lot of other stuff going on.

I certainly didn't read with dds1 1 and 2 at that age though we would often read 2 copies of the same book together. Certainly didn't read on a daily basis with ds (dyslexic) at that age BUT did lots of activities to trick him into reading without realising.

It worries me that as well as putting children off reading, this approach also alienates parents who are already not fully engaged in their children's education. Reading is vital - we need to help parents find ways to make it fun.

I am amazed by most of the responses to this thread.

The parents are too busy to hear their children read. Fine. Thus the child is some way of another getting that time as 'free/play time' out of school.

The school understands that reading requires regular practice. If the parents can't/doesn't hear the child out of school, the school finds time once a week in a lunch hour to hear the child instead. The child is missing 20mins of playtime, but they have already had that time in the week out of school.

So surely it's not a punishment, it's an intervention?

For what it's worth, we always listened to reading before school as DDs were a lot less tired then.

It's intervention if done in school hours. It's punishment if done in playtime, and completely counterproductive as the child learns to resent reading.

It's a punishment in the child's free time. On Friday a couple of my class asked if they could come in to continue their writing at lunchtime. Of course they were allowed. Sometimes children ask to read tome (or the HT) at lunchtime or at break while we're in the playground. Fantastic! Yes of course they can bring out felt pens and paper and write books - love it. But never as a punishment because no-one cold be bothered at home. I might ask them to read out game instructions at a lunchtime club, or send one of my least able to read out a message to the secretary. It's all reading. I might get children to read to Year R/1 children as a favour to me at lunchtime. At its simplest, I've found a funny knock knock joke - go and tell it to the HT. And make sure you deliver it with style. Practise on 3 people in the class first. It's not hard -it's just what teachers do on a daily basis.

Apologies for typos - cheap keyboard!

counterproductive as the child learns to resent reading

Depends how it's sold to the child! They may think they've been lucky to be picked - they may enjoy the one to one attention - they may hate the playground and look forward to some quiet time.

It's an assumption it's a bad thing - learning to read is a good thing

Should always be a choice in their time though.

Yes it should - because at 5 they know how important reading is - and able to make that decision.

School can't do right for wrong - they are only trying to help where parents can't or won't

Parents should read TO their children and not be burdened with school at home.

I don't understand this. You send them to school to help them learn. Learning doesn't stop once they're at home. Surely schools and parents should be in partnership?

And someone above said that her child was with a childminder for a lot of the day and she wouldn't tell an adult what to do in their own home. But that adult is working for you! I would expect them to sit and read with the children at least a couple of times a week. Same with grandparents.

There's no point in expecting everything to happen between 9 and 3 and then complain later when their child isn't achieving.

And yes, I was a working mum, too.

I prefer to read to DDs at bedtime. The problem we've always had is that we both tend to get home not long before the girls bedtime, and often they were too tired to read. We managed to hear them read somehow, but rarely as much as five times a week, and I would be kicking up a stink if there was any kind of punishment attached to it.

When we had a nanny for a short time she would read with them. At the childminders it wasn't possible as there were lots of children. Grandparents will read with them but they already do so much.

Maybe if there wasn't so much homework...DD2 (8) has 4 pieces of homework a week, all which take about 30 minutes each. She is very good about doing it but still needs a bit of help and encouragement. It was much harder when DD1 was also at primary school, and there are a number of parents I know coping with 3 lots of homework.

Technically, interventions tend to be most effective when they take place outside of class time and children aren't being removed from lessons.

I'm not sure 20 mins reading once a week for a child whose reading is as far behind as the OP suggests could be classed as an intervention though.

Such a threatened punishment would have been entirely counterproductive for DD1 at primary school. She had an advanced reading age but was always worried about breaking any rules and would have become quite anxious about the whole thing.

I bloody hate prescribed reading. My 10 year old is expected to read to me 3-5 times a week. He devours books well above his age within a week and he doesn't feel any need to read them to me, nor I to listen. Yet despite his obvious interest in reading, comprehension of what he reads and the amount that he reads we are negatively judged because he doesn't read "to" me.
Because of this my 9 year old can't stand reading homework and my 5 year old is going the same way. The last thing they want to do when they get in is more of what they've spent 6 hours doing, they're children!
Then they (all three) have spellings every week, projects every term and biggest two have maths and English weekly too. It's ridiculous.

My kids read to themselves for between 15mins to an hour each night in bed. I read to them individually most nights.

I try to hear DD (Year 1) read each night and practise her phonics, but that takes literally half an hour and there isn't always time on a busy evening.

DS (Year 5) has to get 3 signed reads each week or he'll get into trouble. (I know that's bollocks, I chat to the parents who hear readers!) He reads to me in the car on the way to school. He doesn't need me to listen. It's always fine.

DS (Year 3) refuses point blank to read boring school reading books. He likes star wars, Sonic the hedgehog and Harry Potter. I hear him occasionally, when he has no other homework. (Blimey those books are boring)

DS (now year 7) was constantly in trouble at that school for reading when he shouldn't have been. And then he'd get into trouble for not having 'done his reading'! Sorry I'll support the school to a point, but that was ridiculous.

It doesnt take 10mins to hear reading. It takes 10mins of arguing to get them to get their book and agree to read, 10 mins to hear them. Times the number of children you have. So last year that would have been more like an hour a night for me.
(And if they struggle it can easily take 20 or 30 mins to read the required 3 pages)

OP the parent was right. Of course you should blame them and not the child! They are responsible for their DC outside school.

The way of resolving this IMO is by starting children much later at school when all of them are ready and can learn more quickly. So many children seem to be put off by 8 or 9 and who can blame them?

An 8 year old reading at a 5 year old level has some sort of SEN - even if you haven't managed to categorise it. I would hope that was obvious.

Ds3 couldn't read at all in year 1. I stopped reading with him at home because the teacher didn't realise (we were plodding through word by word at which stage he'd memorise the book and regurgitate it at school while not reading a single word). Turned out the problem was with his eyes - sorted that and he has spent the following 7 years with his nose forever in a book.

I don't think boot camping reading is the way to go really

Hold on, you are giving 8yr olds a 20minute detention because their parents value social time over sit down education at home?
Wow that's one way to make kids hate reading and hate school.
Playtime is extremely valuable and as of equal value as a formal education. You can get incredibly bright and gift adults but without the essential people skills, struggle in work and life. Playtime is important. I certainly wouldn't punish the children for this.
Oh and I have high expectations of my children, one is in grammar school, the others still at primary. I just also know there's so much more to being a successful person then academia. An 8yr old reading at a 5yr old level is highly likely SEN. But that's ok, they probably have other, wonderful skills to offer that others don't.