Guest Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 <_I am an NQT in Reception, and I was planning on sending reading books home this weekend with those children who are ready. However, my head does not want the scheme books going home (somw may get lost) and only wants me to send library books home to share with parents. I am very concerned that this way I am not going to get their reading off the ground - when will I have time to listen to them read? It's not so bad at the moment, but when more become ready to read then I think I will have problems. Can anyone help?
Guest Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 Learning to read is not just a concept the you get from 'scheme' books. I used to send chidlren word games and words so that they get the conept of words and how words can be put togehtr and read as a sentence. Try sending games home first and then move on to reading books. Does your head not want you to send reading books home at all ao does she want you to wait till later? Check and see if you can work out a comprimise. Get parent helpers to help you with listening to readers. But make use of the opportunities for reading that are availabel all aorund and don't restrict it to just reading books. In my last school the Reeption eys words had been divided into 6 groups and could be used to make babsic sentences. Like- I love my mum/dad/brother/sisiter. Another senstecne with the first set of words was I can play with my mum/dad/...... This gave chidlren a good cencept of words building on to sentecnes and how they had to be placed in the right order to make sense and how you could read out what the sentence said on the whole. This seemed to give young chidlren a good idea of word building and sentence building whcih are essential for teaching reading skills. Does any of this make sense?
Susan Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 Leo-I like the avatar!! Chris-I really wouldn't worry too much. Reading books are very expensive and very consumable once they start going home! It is unusual not to send books home though so what is the policy amongst the rest of the school. I think if you were only to send some home, then the pressure on you from parents of other children would be quite tremendous and I'm not sure about the morale issues for the children either so it could actually be your lucky break. Its also very time consuming keeping track of the books that have gone home and how do you check that the child has benefitted from the home reading experience anyway?! Leo's idea of reading games is a good one, although you are going to need to a lot of resources for that one and time again to check games are complete! Get your parents on baord to come in and help you too. As for reading in the classroom, if you say you have a group who are ready to take books home then what have you been doing already? Guided reading is also a very good opportunity to keep track of childrens reading skills and in my experience the children love sharing a book in that situation. You can actually see really well how the reading skills are developing, such as one to one correspondence of spoken to written word and tracking left to right etc, much more easily than one to one and teach those skills too. I used to do a guided reading session most days, with the rest of the children with my NN, reinforcing phonics or keywords and reading from the book box. My children were EAL so this was also a good time for her to reinforce and extend English vocabulary and I had some lovely picture cards of individual objects that I used for that purpose. Think about the wider language needs of your group and see what you can do. Good luck.
Guest Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 Thanks Susan- that's management trying to subdue me and keep me quiet!!!! Tomorrow is the d-day ( i hand it in) I've had an informal offer of a job aready at a local private nursery school. Less pay but leass travelling and stress -walking distance so will keep you posted
catma Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 You can hear children reading through your guided reading sessions in class. If they are allowed can children take home story books from the class collection? I diidn't hear these being REad in class but would talk to children about them when they were changed..what they liked, who wsa in it etc etc. It was made clear to parents that these were booke for THEM to read at home with their child to support the work in school on reading. Parent's information sheets and meetings reinforced this. Schoolpolicy re books going home is school policy so you can't be blamed for not sending scheme books home but look at how you are doing guided reading groups duirng the week. Don't forget that you will be doing shared reading with the class anyway to model/demonstrate/teach reading strategies also, and providing lots of other opportunities for reaing actvities so it won't all come down to the scheme in the end!!!
Susan Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 Leo, thats wonderful news. IF only I were that lucky!
Susan Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 It is a good solution, Chris. Anyway you could try it? I was sceptical until I tried it but it does work and whats better is that the children really enjoy it!
catma Posted October 17, 2004 Posted October 17, 2004 Has the Literacy coordinator given you any guidance then on what the school policy for the teaching of reading is?? Just having a scheme doesn't give you support in how you are then expected to teach reading skills and strategies. How do others in other year groups manage if they are not doing guided groups?? Just curious as it is interesting in relation to my job Cx
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