If your child's school uses RWI, can I ask you a question...

[Bookbags]

If your children's school use Read Write Inc can I ask if they had to read every book in each colour level in order or did they skip books to move up levels?

We're slowly losing the will to live progressing through the levels and I'm worried if we have to read every book in each colour stage, I believe there is 10 for each stage then my child will just stop trying.

At my daughters school, they are accessed every half term. They dont read the books in order. They have 2 books a week. They also can skip levels. My daughter skipped 4 levels. She started year 1 on purple and skipped to blue. She's now doing grey. We don't read the whole book every day. We might do speedy sounds, the next day we read the book, then we'll read the red and green words. I prefer DC to do a short 5 minute or RWI and the go on reading eggs or teach your monsters how to read. Then at least neither of us are bored out of our brains. Also the books definitely do get better as you go on.

We only get books once a week in this scheme. My friend does another and they get swapped on a Monday and Thursday or similar.

We just read anything at about the right level. She was reading bits of Milly-Molly-Mandy the other day ha ha

Also the books definitely do get better as you go on.

That's encouraging they can't get much worse. 😆

Ds has skipped green and half of purple. Currently on pink but so bored of it. On purple we were getting 3 books a week now on pink we are getting 2 and it's so boring. The non fiction ones are ok but the story books are so dull. We read a lot of other stuff (Mr men, Dr Seuss, Julia Donaldson etc) at home. My DD was on a different reading scheme at a different school and was made to read every book in every colour before she could move up. She could read fluently before she started school so that was ridiculous!

Also hate the RWI books. Most of them are rubbish and really not engaging. Had repeats of the same books with both DC. We don’t read them more than once and I just try to get them to read other stuff at home. DS2 is in year one and I can’t wait until after half term and he will move off programme. One week to go!!

My DD definitely hasn't been made to read every book. As she sometimes jumped up bands quicker than she would have been able to read them all. She's yr1 now and on grey and also very recently started free reading. So she currently gets 2 grey books a week plus gets to choose an additional book (at school) to free read. Before that she was getting two grey books plus a non-fiction of the same level each week. I'm finding it hard since they swapped the non-fictions to free reading books. As the books DD has been picking are a lot longer than the RWI books and also more challenging, so we haven't been able to finish any of those ones so far! Yet they still get swapped weekly, which I don't understand?!

She gets 50 maths questions to answer on app each week too and 8 spellings. Plus the occasional piece of creative/topic based homework maybe a few times a year on top. I honestly find it a lot and I definitely didn't have this amount of homework when I was in yr1!

Ha ha so true about Mumsnet kids.

But in my daughter's reception ckas, we have kids who are reading the brown knight rode to town etc and some that still can't blend for "cat".

50? Fucking hell. What app?

As others said they can be skipped but also we have a new book every 3 days so they don’t get bored of it.

We read rumpelstiltskin the other day.

We skipped a whole colour this term. DS and another couple of more able year 1s are in a group with some year 2s (it’s a small school, this isn’t particularly remarkable) so I’m assuming they just moved them up to align with them.

DS has no interest in reading them tbh so we just read whatever we like from the library. He’s very non-fiction oriented (ASD) and will happily read quite specific scientific words so I don’t think it’s doing him any harm!

How many times are you reading the same book? My kids were meant to read them 3 times over but by the 2nd time I was ready to poke my eyes out so we just read them twice then wrote in the reading record “new book please”.

We read them approximately 4 times. He asks to read them because that's what his teacher says he should be doing and like all kids in reception her word is gospel. I don't think asking for a new book is an option the pattern seems to be they change them each Monday regardless of how many times we read them.

4 times!! They’ll be catering for all abilities and her “try and read every night” will be aimed at kids who can only read a few words at a time. I really don’t expect they’ll want you to read the same book 4 times over!

My eldest with additional needs didn’t manage to read a whole book in one week until year 3. I think you need to mix it up with home books for all your sake or ask for 2 books to be sent home at once if they replace them only once a week.

Oh I 100% agree it's not aimed at those who read nightly but he doesn't know that and if his teacher says read your book every night he wants to do that because he likes his teacher and wants to do as she says.

We do indeed mix it up with books at home but just wanted to know what other schools did before going to ask about extra books or skipping books as if that wasn't how the scheme worked I didn't want to waste time asking. The appointments aren't long so didn't want to waste time with it if it was beyond their control if that makes sense?

i teach RWI the essence of it is that children can move rapidly through levels if they are making progress so don’t panic. If he is insisting on reading the book each night then maybe try and make a game of it like using funny voices, spotting a certain letter etc Just to reassure you with RWI the children should find the books incredibly easy, that’s kind of the point that they have been taught all the knowledge and skills needed to read that book so they can feel super confident and (eventually when the books have more content) realm with expression, answer comprehension questions etc I know at this point it might not feel like it but I honestly believe RWI is a fantastic reading scheme. Keep the faith : )

OP, see if your local library has learning to read books. My DD is also in reception doing RWI and we’ve been getting her some level appropriate books from there because she was so bored from reading the same books and I think it was having a detrimental effect.

I wouldn't waste time asking about it. They know what they're doing.

Unfortunately no scheme books in our local library, I already checked but thanks for the great suggestion. I'm pleased to see it's not just me finding the scheme actually has the opposite effect.

I appreciate the idea is he can read them already but if that's the case you'd think they would try to change them more frequently to prevent those who do want to read every night growing bored. He was so enthusiastic initially to get books home and it's a little sad he seem to have already lost that excitement.

Can I ask why you wouldn't mention it? I'm not saying they don't know what they are doing but surely they'd want to know?

OP, it sounds like you may need to encourage your son to become a tiny bit of a rebel 😃! As others have said, the whole point of the RWI scheme is that the books sent home are ones they can read easily. At the beginning that is deathly dull but as they get into the higher levels the idea is that they read with expression and demonstrate their understanding through answering the questions at the end. The higher levels do have some better stories in (various fairy tales like the Pied Piper and the Emperor’s New Clothes, plus I am a bit of a fan of Winny the Witch).

Your issue appears to be the combination of the fact that the books are meant to be easy and your son’s insistence on reading it every night. Even if he skips multiple levels, all the books get boring if you read them seven times on the trot (trust me, I help with reading at school and have to try very hard to keep my eyes from glazing over at the fourth rendition of The duck chick). Could you not tell him that the teacher has said once he is confident on the book he brings home he should read other books too and he doesn’t have to read the same book every night?

My DDs have probably read almost all of the books, occasionally they have skipped some. But we don't read them three times a week. We read them twice, once all the way through and then the second time just practicing the speedy green or red words at the front and doing the vocabulary check. Then we read other books together they enjoy more. As long as I write three entires in the reading diary, which I do once a week and fudge the dates then everyone is happy. DD1 is in Y3 so now finished RWI and DD2 is in top set for phonics so it's not done them any harm!

OP, it sounds like you may need to encourage your son to become a tiny bit of a rebel 😃!

I'd love him to be a little more rebellious but you can only parent the child you've got and mine is a stickler for the 'rules'. Something he definitely doesn't get from his mother. 😆

We don’t use RWI but my daughter brings home one phonics book a week and we read it three times. The books have never been challenging for her but it hasn’t affected her enthusiasm. She simply reads other books as well as her phonics books. We use the phonics book to discuss vocabulary and she practices reading with expression.

Our school skip books and levels.

I would definitely have a chat with his teacher, and explain that he's taken her read every night message very seriously. If the school make the children read each book, (which is a batshit policy) perhaps you could ask for 2 books each week?