Reading groups in primary 1

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My daughter is 5 and only this week has gotten home work. Her whole class is the same. My friends nephew has been getting home work since the start (august) and has it almost everyday. He is also 5 and in primary 1.

She has reading books with no words (biff and chip) and has a number sheet she traces the numbers, writes it and counts and writes how many. My friend said her nephew is reading and writing entire sentences and learning sounds like "th". His biff and chip has words in it. Is this normal for her age? Is she at the lower range that she doesn't have words in her books etc?

Is it just the differences in schools? Is it uncommon for home work to have not stated until now?

When do 5 year olds get put into groups?

My worry is she's very quiet and won't say her answers and be forgotten almost. Or marked as lower than she is capable of. Her teachers comments of the same book we read are not what she did for me. She understood the story perfectly and was mocking me for asking simple questions. I'm worried she won't speak up and will just nod along.

Hi, I am a primary teacher in Scotland. Your nephew is possibly further ahead with his reading, which is why he's getting trickier sounds and words. If your daughter isn't getting books with words, it means she isn't ready for them yet.

What you also need to remember, is that when a child brings a book home, they've already read it at school with the teacher. So it will definitely be easier second time around when they read at home.

From my experience, all children in P1 start reading at different times. It really doesn't mean anything at this point. Some can blend the sounds and others can't. Some can memorise more sight words and others can't.

I have taught children who have been slow starters reading in P1 but have been very strong readers in P5 for example. And the other way around, some children begin strong but then peak, and others over take.

We have over 50 P1s in our school at the minute, and only around 20 are blending sounds to read words. The rest are still learning new sounds.

I hope this helps, she honestly sounds like she is doing fine.

When all the children are ages 7, 10, 12 etc you won’t know who learned to read a little earlier than the others.