Mumsnet Talk

What book level does the reading scheme generally stop and free reading begin? Thanks

in our school, after stage 11 but I believe it varies from school to school

It's different in diifferent schools I think.

We have banded books all the way up to stage 18, ( which is level 5) but children read a mix of banded and non banded books from stage 11 upwards.

My DS is still on the scheme at stage 13. However he's a significantly better reader than some of his friends who have been allowed to be 'free readers'. In This case they have kept hom on the scheme as his writing is significantly behind and they want to keep him on shorter books to allow his writing to catch up.

He reads freely at home.

I think its different for different individuals. DD was a free reader just after starting year one and IIRC she hadn't read through all the bands because it was pointless.

The reason i ask is because my ds, who is in y1 , is on band 9 and is getting quite bored with his reading scheme books, which we rarely read at home anyway, i was thinking of writing a note in his reading diary to ask what his teacher thought about either going up a band (although would there be much difference at this level anyway) or coming of the scheme all together?

It depends on how fixated the school are in continuing the reading scheme until the bitter end. It can't hurt to ask though.

We don't have free readers unless they can read Dryden

Dryden? Pah. It's Ovid in our school.

Mr Gove would not approve it's Dryden or nothing!!

They're hidden inside Dryden book jackets.

At DS's school they're not officially free readers until they've finished level 16. Mcuh as I have come to loathe scheme books I can see he is still benefitting eg last week was a Ginn book of short stories. One was full of olde language and colloquialisms which he would otherwise been unlikely to find in Ben10 come across.

Good ploy ... that Ovid bloke isn't English ...

30 levels at my Dc's school.

I think it must depend on the school, DD is in reception and is allegedly a "free reader" but the impression I got from parents evening the other week is that this will change when she starts year 1 and she'll go back onto scheme books. Not completely sure about that, but she's only on ?orange band (don't know what level that is) so I would expect the school still to be wanting to use their scheme. Which isn't terrible, so I don't really mind either way.

Also, even as a free reader she has to pick 1 non-fiction, 1 poetry and 1 fiction book to bring home per week, so she still gets a nice mix of stuff.

Free reading in reception (and other year groups) is to impress parents IMHO. No matter how able a reader these are young children with lots to learn and the teacher should be guiding their development/learning not leaving it to chance. Good readers are going to be accessing lots of books for pleasure but they still need to be taught skills ...or what are teachers teaching in English lit at secondary schools?