Should reading and writing levels be the same RWI?

[elephantmarch]

Are children doing RWI in reception expected to be able to write as well as they can read? Is the aim that they need to be able to spell and read the words before moving between levels?

[Anotheroneishere]

Our school doesn't expect reading and writing to be on the same level. Reading books aren't tied in any way to writing levels, though I'm not sure if they follow RWI (they do ORT but not sure about RWI).

Both my boys are exceptional readers and have very average fine motor skills. The disconnect is significant and challenging, but it doesn't mean that my reception boy should be limited to reading simple words when he can read much more.

Our school does expect good content from more able pupils (towards the end of reception and year 1), which was challenging for my boy's relatively weak fine motor skills.

[Norestformrz]

I’m not an expert on a RWI but in general spelling will normally lag behind reading.

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

No, ds’ reading level is a lot higher than his writing and spelling.level but that means he is in the top rwi group.
He hasn’t even started spellings yet either as he didn’t do them in reception and not had them in year one so far.

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

Also if they were waiting for everyone to spell all the sounds in rwi then the course would go into ks2 for most as last sounds are things like ‘tion’ and ‘cious’.

[ProfessorCat]

No.

[jennielou75]

Writing is usually a bit behind reading but rwi expects them to be the same. Leads to lots of children struggling with the writing activities especially those with eal in my experience.

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

I think that if your school is expecting writing and reading to be same before progression then they are teaching rwi wrongly.