Changing from ORT numerical reading levels to colours

[katalex]

Dd's school has just assigned each child to a coloured reading band instead of the numbered levels. They still have the same ORT books but they now have coloured labels. Dd was on level 12 but now she says that most of the books in the white level that she has been assigned to are levels 9 and 10 and she has already read all of them.

The school has not provided the parents with any information about what this change means so, understandably we are concerned about the appearance that our children have been put down several levels and have to re-read all the books on those levels.

I found a post on here from a while ago which said that the white level is assigned to children who are progressing towards a level 3c but in dd's report last year (year 2) she was given level 3 for reading (with no letter). I'm going to make an appointment to speak to dd's teacher but I was wondering if anyone has any information about this first.

[katalex]

Bumping to page 1 in case anyone has any advice today.

Thanks.

[redskyatnight]

Coloured reading bands span several ORT levels. The levels are based mostly on the "type/style of text" e.g. how many sentences, sentence structure etc. Whereas (I think) the ORT levels are based more on the words used. However if your DD has already read some of the books, there doesn't seem much point in her reading them again (Unless she really wants to!)

IF this is the standard NC book banding then white correlates roughly to 2A,so sounds a bit low for your DD. However the school may be doing it's own thing. You really need to ask.

[learnandsay]

It might just be a mistake. If the children have already read the books I can't imagine why the teachers would want them to re-read them.

[PeppermintCreams]

At my son's school they have their coloured own book bands which they made up. Probably to stop over competitive parents worrying about what level their child was on compared to everyone else. Maybe this is what they have done here?

You are right to ask why she's reading the same books again though.

[katalex]

Thanks for the replies. Dd has brought some books home over the last few days and it looks like they have got a lot of new (old) books from different schemes. Some are mostly pictures and take her 5 minutes to read and others have more text. They still have the ORT books. Dd brought home a level 8 book yesterday. I'll speak to the teacher on Wednesday to find out how they decide which colour to put them on. I just need to understand why she's gone from reading 30 page books with 5 or 6 chapters to 16 page books that are mostly pictures, the kind she was reading in year 1.

I agree it's possible they could have made a mistake because her friend's mum complained that the books were too easy and they put her up two levels. Strangely, her friend was previously on level 13 (dd was on 12) and now she's a level below dd on the colour scheme. Very confusing.