Reading levels at school................a query?

[pepsi]

My ds is about to start his last term in reception and started reading at begining of March and is now coming home with Level 3 books which I think is absolutely briliant and about right for his age. Other Mums have said to me their children could read when they started reception and havent really improved on their reading since they started and in some cases got worse and have now got back to Level 3/4. Its got me thinking about the whole thing and I wondered what level schools expect/want by the end of Year 1. I notice on the books he had last time that there were 9 colour coded levels. Is the idea that a child gets through these levels by the time they are 7 or are there more levels to guage a childs progress. Surely theres only so far a 5 year old can go and if they start school reading they can only progress so far in that year. My Ds is doing great acadamically, still is classed as a SN child but the Ed Physch visit recently was really positive and she said his progress was pleasing. Any help on what the goals are for Year 1 appreciated.

[soapbox]

Pepsi there has been a thread on this recently if you check the archives.

IIRC there was a wide range of abilities from level 1 to level 8 in reception children. The majority seemed to be around level 2-3 at this point in the year. So your DS is doing fine!
I think the average level at teh end of year 1 is around level 5-6. Some children are finished the scheme levels by this point and some are still on level 3, again there is a wide level of attainment.

Things do seem to level out in Y2 with most children having finished the scheme books by the end of this year.

HTH

[pepsi]

I havent seen a level 8 book but thats very impressive that children so young could read this well. Im happy with my ds's progress but cant help but worry that some parents just expect miracles from their little ones.

[LIZS]

I wonder if the different schemes are really comparable, ie. Ginn vs ORT vs New World vs a.n. other scheme. If it is ORT, for example, on their website they state the approximate reading age/school year& term suitability for that level, here , going through to year 6 Level 16. Whether that is generally adhered to I'm not sure.

[bigdonna]

in year 1 the average reading level is 7 or 8

[singersgirl]

I guess the 'average' reading level varies from school to school and from teacher to teacher; in DS1's old school, in Y1, the teacher had a very high threshold before she'd move them up a level, and all her top readers were reading scheme reading books well below their 'free' reading level - to focus on comprehension, fluency in reading out loud etc. Also, (a sweeping generalisation here) in schools where one reading scheme is used exclusively, children tend to progress up the scheme faster because of the repetitive nature of the books; if a variety of schemes is used, the children tend to move more slowly up the levels because they are reading less predictable texts at each stage.
FWIW, by the end of my DS1's reception year, 2 children were reading Cliff Moon Orange level (included some ORT Levels 7 and 8), 1 child was reading Cliff Moon Grey (included some ORT Levels 6 and 7) and the rest were on anything from Levels 1 to ORT 3.
In DS1's current, different school, by the end of Y2, about 9 children are pretty much fluent, with the top 4 or 5 reading(as an example) Harry Potter type books, a further 6 or so are on easy chapter books/ORT Stage 11-13 ish, another 5 or so are on ORT Stages 8/9/10, 1 is on ORT Level 5/6 and 3 can't read. I've listened to all the classes read over the last 3 years and have loved listening to them all progress.