How are KS1 reading levels assessed?

[IndigoBell]

Can any teacher please answer a reading levels question?

How can school tell me my DD (in Year2) is a level 1B in reading when she really struggles to read green band books at home, and in no way would be reading them with 90% accuracy?

They keep on telling me 'but she understands what she reads'.

Do you think she reads significantly better at school than she does at home?

Can you award a 1B if you can't read green band books fluently?

What evidence would school need to justify her reading at 1B?

[mrz]

Yellow band books are roughly 1C blue band 1C/B
green band 1B/A orange 1A

so if she is reading blue band confidently she can be classed as a 1B using APP criteria.

I know a lot is made of 90% on mumsnet but it's certainly not a hard and fast rule.

[Runoutofideas]

Does that mean a child reading and understanding turquoise books confidently would be a 2c?

[mrz]

turquoise 1A/2C as a rough guide

[ireallyreallytrulyhatefootball]

MRZ how many words out of say, every 100, should a child be reading without error for a book to be about right/ too hard/ too easy?

[cece]

So what is a purple then mrz please?

[mrz]

Honestly? I never count words unless it's for the SAT task...

purple roughly 2C
Gold 2B
white 2A/3
lime 3C

[IndigoBell]

She doesn't ready anything confidently. She recently bought home some red band books, and they didn't seem to easy.

Somehow there is a discrepancy between how I judge 'being able to read' and how the school judges 'being able to read'. But I don't understand what they are marking her on.

Can you call it reading if it is slow and hesitant and half guessing?

She reads nothing fluently, only knows half her phonics, and half her 100 high frequency words. She can read CVC words, but not fluently. You can still hear her blending them.

Does this sound like a 1B to you? ( I know it must be a 1B, I would just like to understand what criteria they might be using )

Is it just that it is clearly better than a 1C rather than she has achieved a 1B?????

I'm confused.....

[bruffin]

I thought sats tests for reading are not about reading out loud. It's about reading a passage and being able to answer questions on it in written form.

[mrz]

If she's reading at the level you say then I wouldn't award Level 1 at all

[mrz]

bruffin SAT TASKS are reading a passage allowed then talking about the book and what the child has read. SAT tests are comprehension booklets

[mrz]

aloud

I should read before I post and concentrate

[bruffin]

then is the OP teacher talking about tasks or tests?

[mrz]

Tests assess level 2 & 3
tasks assess level 1-2

[mrz]

but I would imagine if the teacher is saying 1B that we are talking about teacher assessment not SATs

[IndigoBell]

Yes, we are talking about teacher assesment / school reports. And I believe for the SATS for level 1 it's not broken down until sublevels - she'll just get a level 1.

MRZ I am concerned that she is worse than school are saying, but there isn't much I can do about it.

Anyway, obviously it's not her grades I am really concerned about - it's the fact that she can't read. Or write.

I can't understand how they can award her a 2 in maths when she was unable to add 10 to 23, or count from 1960 to 1970.

I would far prefer she got worse grades than inflated ones, but obviously the school has a different view.

[mrz]

Inflating her grades will just cause problems for the KS2 staff who I hope will recognise your daughter's problems and provide support. You could challenge her levels I'm assuming you will have the opportunity to talk over levels with her teacher.

[Runoutofideas]

Is this a separate infant school and junior school OP? I'm just wondering if there's a chance the teacher is trying to up her own figures before sending the children off to a new school, then claiming they've forgotten everything over the summer holidays? Not sure if this happens, and it doesn't help your daughter much. Hope the next teachers can work with her to support her better.

Mrz - thanks for being such a mine of information!

[IndigoBell]

Yes, it's a seperate infant and junior school and I think you're right. The infant school doesn't seem particularly motivated at the moment....

I'm just a bit scared to talk to the Junior SENCO in case she's as bad as the last 2 SENCOS....

The acceptance that dyslexic children will never learn to read and will always struggle at school, rather than the attitude that they are as bright as other children and just need to be taught in a different way, is staggering.

So when they hear her reading hesitantly and stumbling they are saying 'she can read' - whereas they wouldn't give a reception kid who was reading this badly a 1B.

[Runoutofideas]

I don't know much about dyslexia but I think there are different teaching schemes/methods which, as you say, have a different approach - I'm sure someone will be able to elaborate on this.

If you think she is dyslexic, could you maybe try one of the different approaches with her over the holidays and see if she makes any progress? I'm just thinking that if she shows improvement the Juniors may be more keen to implement a different strategy and maybe continue with the new method. It's probably worth trying to talk to the Junior SENCO - you never know, they may be really good. It is shocking to me that your daughter could be effectively "written off" as not being able to read at such a young age. There must be ways of making it more accessible to her....

[mrz]

I'm SENCO and currently teaching Y2 if I can help?

[maizieD]

mrz,

A question. Would it be reasonably safe to assume that, if the school is using book bands and a child is struggling with phonics in Y2, that their understanding of how to teach reading and help strugglers may not be of the highest?

[mrz]

Without knowing the school I wouldn't like to judge. There are children who do struggle even with good phonics instruction well into Y2 or 3 before something clicks. What I would be more concerned with is the apparent lack of support being given.

[mrz]

I haven't asked but it would be interesting to know what methods are being used and what reading scheme/s.

[IndigoBell]

I honestly don't think DD is struggling from a lack of good phonics teaching. They are using Read Write Inc since Year 1, and all the teachers and TA's have been on the training course. They no longer let Mums in to read with the kids because they haven't been trained.

Although they are bringing home ORT and RWI books. Every single other kid in the class has learnt to read, including 1 who is deaf, and 1 who is EAL and had a number of problems at birth.

But if you read the RWI website it clearly states it doesn't work for every single kid. Dyslexia is a complicated thing. As far as I can tell DD 'thinks in pictures' rather than thinking in words, and this is why she is really struggling to learn to read.

Because of this she also really struggles to learn new vocab. She often repeats back synonyms, for example I was talking about a 'funky monkey' and she repeated back 'cool monkey'. Because she doesn't keep words in her head only pictures.

There also appears to be some kind of a memory problem, and possibly some kind of processing delay. I'm still trying to unpick it all to work out what kind of reading method will help her.

But regards me and school, communiation has really broken down. I was very critical of the 3rd wave intervention she was on (5 minute box) because when I researched it it gets very poor results and is not a recommended intervention. I was also very critical of the teacher who was equally terrible with my older DS.

So I keep saying these reading books / this homework is too hard for her, and school keeps saying it isn't. And we can't really get past this.

However I'm now wondering if beause of her dyslexia she genuinely can do an awful lot more in the morning at school than she can do after school with us. But I don't know, I am at a total loss to understand why they are sending books home which I think are too hard for her.

I think I must be the only Mum in the world to complain that the reading books DD is bringing home are too hard.

[mrz]

Has she been seen by SaLT to assess for a Receptive Language Disorder?

A lot of children work better for teachers than they do for parents (my own included) simply because they see us in different roles.