AIBU to move schools - Reading levels

[FFS123]

My daughter is 7 and at a private school. She has just started purple reading books. She is in year 3. She has dyslexia so that has held her back as it was only diagnosed recently and not picked up by school. But her clever friends in class are only on reading level white.

When i google reading levels then purple is early year 2 and even white is year 2.

The ed psych was scathing about my daughters level of education and how far behind she is. School say she tracked green all through and thats why they never noticed the signs.

So does this mean that the school has low academic standards and purple in year 3 is green whereas in another school that would be deemed miles behind?

No comments on private v state. I am well aware i have paid alot of money for a school that appears crap at academics. I will be moving my daughter as soon as i sort out an alternative school. However i am struggling to get a straight answer from anyone on whether purple in year 3 is behind or normal for private school because they do so many other activities. When she was year 1 she was also behind when i googled levels of reading but i was told she was young, its normal level in private school etc etc.

Any parents of private school children in year 3 out there and if so what reading levels are your children and their class mates on and do you think that's normal?

I don't think its covid related. she was behind a year ago according to google.

Most schools have different reading schemes. I'm presuming you're talking about ORT read write Inc?

It may be work discussing it with school first. A move doesn't mean she'll get "better" standards or show more progression but it will mean a rip away from her social group and could be more disruptive than helpful.

Did the edpsych give any substance behind her scathing reviews and ideas on support needs?

My DS is at prep school and by year 3 only those who were really struggling were still on reading bands at all.

Reading level colours vary from scheme to scheme, make sure you know which scheme they use!

My - extremely- dyslexic son is on purple level now in year 3. Also private school, but they saw the dyslexia in early year 1 and supporting him. Most children in his class are free readers.
However, he (same as me!) is extremely dyslexic, purple for him
is a massive achievement.
Looking at friends in other schools (state and private), purple is about mid year 2.

Difficult to say whether she's behind based on reading colour band. Every school is different and even if they have the same colour system, the difficulty of books within each colour can be vastly different. What 'normal' books can your child read and understand. E.g. how would she get on with The Twits (Roald Dahl). Without wanting to offend, if she's dyslexic, you would expect her to be behind with reading. Moving schools wouldn't necessarily help catch her up because she has a learning difficulty in this area. Could you have a conversation with teacher about how they are supporting her to improve her reading. Are they doing anything specific for her dyslexia e.g. catch up programme or online software. Did the Ed psyc recommend anything for the school to do?

For what it's worth, I think purple is a bit behind for yr3. I'd expect white and lime for the average child.

ive tried to add a file here but not sure if its worked. Its the Oxford reading scale. She has been mainly reading chip, biff and kipper stuff.

She was diagnosed with dyslexia a few weeks ago even though the school said she had no signs. The ed psych was scathing of her education and shes 19th percentile for reading and theres no excuse for the school not noticing she was struggling. The school said she was tracking green. How can purple be green in year 3 when the chart clearly shows its year 2. State school friends of mine say their children were on white in year 2.

I would be taking more note of the educational psychologists report.

I'd be more concerned the school didnt notice anything. What else are they going to miss?

My just turned 7 year old boy is on purple band (state school) and is definitely not dyslexic or behind in anything. He can handle David Walliams books with no problems.

Honestly I'd be thoroughly unimpressed that they didnt notice she was struggling so much and dismissed your concerns. I would be worried about what else they wouldn't notice.

The school didnt know she was dyslexic until a few weeks ago so they thought purple year 3 was fine for a non dyslexic child. They kept telling me she wasnt dyslexic.

They do power maths which is a nightmare for a dyslexic. The school introduced it last year and since then my daughter hates maths.

She doesnt read outside of school. Reading at home has been such a struggle that we dont look at anything else. In hindsight its because of the dyslexia but school kept telling me there were no signs.

She showed all the signs of dyslexia as other children in my mind but wasn't flagged. She isn't very very dyslexic if that even is a thing. Dyslexia isn't something i have any experience of.

I have the ed psych report and there are a load of actions for the school to implement and they seem to be doing it. However i am concerned that their academic goals are really low. Even her bright classmates are on white as i said and that still googles as mid year 2 not year 3.

Lots of children have recently left the school because its got rubbish. But now they are supporting her for dyslexia i cant decide if i should be worried about the fact they thought she was not dyslexic but she only moved to purple this week and they think that's tracking green for year 3.

you can't look at book bands in isolation. Schools and individual teachers have different approaches to moving children up bands.

From my experience, Some like to dutifully move them through every book in the band and before they move them up regardless, then they'll move up to the next teacher who will skip 3 + bands because of their ability.

You need to take a broader look at how well your daughters progress is being managed.

To be honest, for me its less the reading level (the same reading level will e judged different by schools - some set reading level at what is easy for the child, some what is challenging, some in the middle), but that they didn’t see signs of dyslexia.
I know our school sets reading levels at whatever the child is reads comfortable, and do guided reading with books one or 2 levels above. Another school sets reading level at what is challenging for the child, so the kids there are on paper 2 reading levels further up, but in practice the same.
That they didn’t spot dyslexia early is the worrying thing, ours Were starting support in reception, mid year 1 they were sure. But my son is fairly extreme (plus i’m very heavily dyslectic as well, so it didn’t come as a surprise).

coolcats - if your boy is just turned 7 i assume he is year 2?

They have only just started year 3 so I wouldn't be unduly worried about the fact that many kids are on the upper end of year 2 targets.

I think I'd be more interested in the specific help the school are able to offer your DD - and as the mother of a dyslexic son, I can relate to the "doing okay enough that the school aren't pulling their finger out" phenomenon. Little bit surprised to see it in the private sector.

Having said that, round my way, there are private schools and private schools (bit like Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall - they definitely divide into "leading school", "good school" and "school" ). The good ones are very good indeed, the bad ones simply trade on some parents' snobbishness and other parents' desperation (three out of 4 of the local state schools are good, the 4th is truly terrible, so I can well understand parents scraping together whatever money they can muster to get their kid out of there).

Anyway, if you think the support is okay, probably leave your daughter there regardless of how other kids are doing. But there's no harm in putting out feelers to other schools. Talk to other parents too, specially other parents of children with specific learning difficulties if you can find them. It's easy for schools to talk the talk and produce a piece of paper saying what superb support they give children with dyselxia - harder to actually do in practice.

Also be aware of the fact that state schools are very stretched for resources. For instance, a friend of mine who's an ed psych in the next county said where her case load used to allow some time for supporting middle of the road but struggling due to specific difficulties cases, now all she has time and resources for are fire-fighting the absolutely worst cases - the children with really serious behavioural difficulties from really challenging home backgrounds.

reading these comments im so upset. My husband is dyslexic so every parents evening we asked if there were any signs, thats twice a year. In year 2 i spoke to the teacher several times because she was saying was instead of saw, she kept mixing up the, is, and etc, she holds her pen really bad, cant spell for toffee, confused the hands on the clock when telling time etc and every time i was fobbed off with 'thats normal'.

I took her to the ed Psych because i had doubts and i honestly wasn't sure what she would say because the school kept telling me she was fine. But the ed psych said classic dyslexia, no excuse for not noticing. Now im worried ive wasted 3 formative years where she could have been getting support and help to help her love reading and instead she has slogged away with no help whilst I have nagged and nagged and been fobbed off at every turn.

The good news is the interventions are helping already but i dont feel i can trust the school and i also feel if they did everything right and fully supported her she would still be miles behind because the whole school are because thats the required level.

A friend is a year 3 teacher and she said her dyslexics are doing year 1 work 'because there's no point giving them anything harder'

Its not really a debate about private v state. I know some people have strong opinions.

There's another private school i can send her to with a friend already there but its a long drive each way. A good local school is full.

My children were both at a private school (they have just moved in to years 1 and 2 respectively). I felt they were being held back with their reading, which I raised with the school. My (then Reception age son) was easily reading year 1/2 books that we had at home, but the school refused to move him up from the very basic levels. I had other concerns about the school, but we made the huge decision to relocate and move schools and my son (year 1) has now been given gold level books which are great for him.

Not all private schools are created equal, and I feel incredibly frustrated that we spent all that money on a sub-standard school for so long (it was lacking pastorally too, which was my bigger concern).

I hope your daughter gets the support she needs

but i dont feel i can trust the school

I think this says it all. You tried everything to get an early diagnosis and it was you who involved the ed psyc, no wonder you have no trust in them!

I would look at other options if possible. Hopefully in a new school she will flourish and the new start will boost her confidence.

My y3 is on l8 and my dyslexic y5 is on l9, bearing in mind that they've just lost half a school year of formal education so that's continuing from where they left off in March.

It's a functional level of literacy, and at that age they have many more years of reading and developing to go. Mine can read and enjoy age appropriate books like David Walliams. The biggest consideration is page layout/ font. DS can't cope with walls of unbroken text. He needs space, bitesized chunks and clean fonts.

A dyslexia diagnosis at 7/ the start of y3 is early. It was clear that DS1 was dyslexic from y1 with extensive writing difficulties, reversing, phonetic spelling, difficulties tracking, swapping words (was/ saw) and very slow progress at reading. In y2 he was still on the yellow/ stage 3 books, did a colour screening and suddenly read and bumped up to stage 5. We still couldn't get anywhere on dyslexia testing until the financial year after he turned 8 in y3, even then we had to pay for it.

Changing schools is drastic action and should not be done lightly. If private has smalker class sizes, that is good for increasing support/ attention. Despite his dyslexia, dyspraxia and latest diagnosis of ASD, DS is in a class of 30 and basically has no support. This year is worse because parents can't go in and help with reading or interventions so it's worse than ever.
This is a "good", understanding school, but there is just no budget for extras.

Don't beat yourself up - it's actually quite hard to diagnose. It won't be noticeable at all in reception age children, because of the very wide spread in the age at which kids "get" phonics. Then year 1 and 2 - again, hard to distinguish a child who isn't ready to read yet, or a child who can't be bothered (learning to read is hard work, after all - for some kids the reward only kicks in when they're old enough to have enough grasp on stories to want to read) from one who's having difficulties because of some underlying issue like dyslexia.

I only got DS's first diagnosis at the end of year 3 when it became apparent that the gap between what he could do verbally and what he could pick up through listening to his teachers compared to his reading ability was really huge.

(That's awful about "no point giving them anything harder". As I'm sure you know, having a dyslexic DH, the point is that it's a specific difficulty with reading, not a general problem with understanding. Sheesh, I thought we'd really got past the bad old days of writing off kids with dyslexia as "just a bit stupid." )

Did the ed psych give you strategies? I found going into school with a tick list really helped - things like:

he struggles with working memory, so please make sure the TA is on hand to repeat instructions if it's a complicated sequence of tasks he might get jumbled up

he has to concentrate that bit harder, so please sit him near the front where he's less likely to get distracted

let him start to use a tablet from an early stage

etc.

Some teachers were brilliant, some less so.

As you have discovered private schools are as diverse as the state sector. Where we used to live there was a private secondary school which consistently achieved lower GCSE grades than the local comp - payment does not always get you better results and this is something you need to check carefully.

Even if results are generally better a private school is not always better at supporting children with SEN - some are amazing, others not so much.

It is not normal to be on white in year 3 at state or private, although some children will still be on the reading scheme. A few schools have a very dogged approach to the reading scheme and make children read every single book at each level - could this be the case at your DD’s school?

Your issue with moving schools is how to get your DD into a more academic school while she is behind. As part of the dyslexia diagnosis did the ed psych carry out an IQ test which could at least help demonstrate that her being behind is due to dyslexia plus poor education, which means that with support she stands a good chance of catching up with her peers at a new school?

State school teacher here!
If I was inspected by Ofsted, they would expect all children in Y3 to be reading age appropriate books which means white band or above. White band means their phonics decoding skills are secure. We would consider purple band to be the mid Y2 for most children.
To move onto the next book band, they need to be able to read over 95% of the text (automatic reading not sounding out).
To achieve this level of fluency, they need to read an appropriately challenging text (can read 90-95% automatically), read broadly within the band, re-read familiar books and practise, practise, practise!
An expert in teaching children with dyslexia should be advising the school on how best to support your child with their reading.
I hope this is helpful and wish you both the best of luck.

Op, did you see my thread! I've had massive issues with my 7 year old reading and school!

I'd really appreciate you pming me some of the support measures your dd is getting.

My dd also mixes up, was /saw, of /for etc.

Who /how...

She's on purple, 8, and it's been a slog to get her there and our school want to put her back to 8.

We also cannot get her to read anything other than her reading books. I signed up to reading chest, gold, £20 a month to keep her reading books going.

Op, if intervention are in place now maybe it's best to see how that works out?

My dd has been floundering without support or help since reception! By year 2 I had enough and started to seek help.

The biggest help was a rainbow 🌈 magnetic spelling board. With physical letters. I was told by tutor she didn't have her alphabet. We started to use the spelling board to initially spell... Pulling letters down from the alphabet rainbow... And then practising on the white board.
We boosted spelling from 0/10 to 9 or 10/10.

This helped to kick-start the reading then stalled at level 4/5!!
I went back to flash cards, Peter and Jane books too.
We built her up again.
I employed a tutor with dyslexia experience.
At the end of lock down I also employed a maths tutor who uses visual aids for number bonds etc.

She can do the work she just needs to come at it from a slightly different angle.

I brought Carol voderman English books and went through those, little by little during lock down... Also reading eggs, the on line program and did a few minutes a day.

I had to beg, bribe dd to begin with , barter for computer time, her favourite mints!

She started to really fly during lock down and everything then started to weld together, the spellings then coming in the books we read...

Op I've been tearing my hair out over it, agonised whether to change school, just look on school as a social venue that can't teach her!

Your not alone, sadly but as people have kindly said to me, your dd is extremely lucky to have you!
Don't despair... She will get there and its not too late to bring her forward.
Infact, once she is taught in a way she understands, she will grasp things very quickly.