What books are/were your LO's reading....

[Sugarbeach]

towards the end of Year 1?

Do you sit with them while they read aloud or do you leave them alone to read at that age?

[2BoysTooLoud]

Kids vary a lot at the end of year 1. My ds reads his school books out loud to me and has bed time stories read to him. He does read to himself but tends to read shorter books/ snippets from kids' non fiction stuff. Likes the simpler Roald Dahl books and easy Enid Blyton.
Think important to read out loud so you can keep an eye on pronunciations etc.

[lljkk]

DD was quite into Horrid Henry. DSs were only looking at picture books & school reading books. I left DD to it, mostly, but still listened to DSs daily.

[Madsometimes]

Dd1 was on about level 3 of the reading scheme in Y1, but was free reading by Christmas of Y2. Once reading clicks many children come on incredibly quickly. Dd2 was free reading in Y1.

I listened to them both daily in Y1, but less so afterwards. Their teachers would like parents to listen daily to our children even in Y6, but I admit I do not. It is about weekly for my Y3 dd, and a lot less for my Y6 dd, but they do read quietly every day and are not allowed TV midweek.

[SofaQueen]

DS1 had finished the Harry Potter series by the time he finished Year 1. However, there was a wide variety of reading levels. By the time they started Year 2, all the boys were off reading schemes.

[Toadinthehole]

Harry Potter? Y1 is - what age?

[letthembe]

My DH and I listen to our DC read daily (well almost daily) and then read a book that is above their reading age, just to broaden their experience. Both are 'free readers' in their school (Y2 and Y3). But you have to remember different points for exiting reading schemes. In my DC's school it was Book Band 9, and IMO I thought it was early for both of them. In fact DS was put back onto the X Project at BB10 -12, for a few months to sure up his decoding.

[SofaQueen]

Year 1 is 5-6 years old.

[bubblecoral]

Year 1 they should still be reading to parents imo, not for help to decipher the words, but as something nice to do together, so you can talk about the story, and so that any unfarmiliar words can be explained.

Y1, my boys were reading Horrid Henry, Captain Underpants, that one about a scared cat (can't remember properly, youngest is y4) and lots of Roald Dahl.

[letthembe]

Toad - do they read HP independently? I find quite dark, even for older children. Is your DC ok with it? It gave my DS nightmares and he is anything but shy and retiring.

[Toadinthehole]

SofaQueen - so your DS1 read / have read to him the entire HP series at the age of 5/6?

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

My DD was a very reluctant reader around that age. She would read Arthur and Angelina Ballerina with encouragent. One day, the words just clicked in her head and she was away. At that age she loved the worst witch, Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton and Jeremy Strong.
She reads for Belgium now, we can't stop her.

[SofaQueen]

Toadinthehole - I started reading the first Harry Potter to DS1 at beginning of year 1 but I wasn't reading enough/fast enough so he would take the book after I was finished and read on. I just let him continue at his own pace, on his own. Because he was taking the books into school with him to continue reading there, his teacher let him use the HP books as his reading books. I did try and stop him reading the series after Order of the Phoenix, but he would sneak them under his covers so I let him finish the series.

In all fairness, he was six when he was reading the books, not 5 (he is a November baby). Also, I don't think that his reading is that unusual as most of the boys in his class seem to have read some of the HP series by this point now in Year 2.

[DisparityCausesInstability]

DS reads Harry Potter - he gets the plot but no doubt misses a lot - at 7 he just doesn't have the life experience to fully appreciate the books. I hope he will read them again when they are more age appropriate but atm I have told him he can't watch the films till he has read the books - bad idea imho.

[DisparityCausesInstability]

My kids loved Horrid Henry, Worst Witch, Flat Stanley, Rainbiow Fairies, picture books, Jerermy Strong, Beast Quest, Astrosaurs....in fact these books are still being appreciated over and over again.

[circular]

Dr Seuss, Rainbow Fairies, Enid Blyton Faraway tree, Road Dahl, Horrid Henry

[propatria]

Could those parents whose dcs were reading HP in year one tell me what sat reading level they were given at the end of ks1?

[Saracen]

None, she couldn't read at all at that age. I used to read to her, Swallows and Amazons, E Nesbit, Little Grey Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and a bit of nonfiction from time to time.

[TheLadyEvenstar]

DS1 had also finished the HP series before the end of yr1.
By the time he was halfway through yr2 he was reading yr6 books and by yr3 there wasn't a book he hadn't read I ended up supplying him with books.

[lljkk]

DD was most certainly NOT up to reading HP in Yr 1. She spent 4 months of y2 reading only Calvin + Hobbes. She got Level 3s in her y2 SATs for literacy things, end of ks1. They don't test higher than L3.

DD still hasn't read HP now (end of y4).

[exexpat]

Propatria - ability to read Harry Potter at an early doesn't necessarily correlate with Sats scores in my experience.

DS read the first five books of HP when he was six (all that were published then) and understood them pretty well as far as I could tell. We weren't in the UK then, so don't know what his Sat score at the end of yr2 would have been, but when he was in yr6 (age 10) to everyone's surprise he only got a 4 in KS2 Sats for English - despite being an advanced and voracious reader, and having already been accepted into a selective independent secondary school, with a place on their gifted programme (and he's been getting A*s all the way in secondary). But he does have atrocious handwriting (his Sats papers had to be transcribed) and he found the whole sats preparation and testing process mind-blowingly boring....

DD on the other hand was reading Rainbow Fairies, Horrid Henry, Jack Stalwart etc in yr2 - didn't get round to Harry Potter until she was 8 - but scored 3s in everything in her yr2 Sats.

[propatria]

I was wondering if teachers in their assessments found that reading hp in year 1 had translated into ks1 results.

[SofaQueen]

Can't answer the level on ks1 question as DS1's school doesn't do SATs. TBH, I don't think that the ability to read HP equals exceptional ability. They are interesting stories, particularly for fantasy action obsessed children and most of the other boys in DS1's class have read some of the books to date (Year 2). I know that DS1 is doing well (top 1 or 2 in his year group), but reading HP is not the thing to me which indicates his current ability.

[simpson]

DS loves reading (ORT level 9) but he hates the horrid henry books....

ATM he likes Roald Dahl and I have just got some books from the library "Happy Families series (there are 16 althogether) which he is happy to read by himself without help from me, although they are a little easy, he is happy to do it by himself, so I am not going to argue!!

Don't think my DS would be into HP TBH, it would not rock his boat iyswim....

Don't know what level reading he would be assessed at but he is in top set for reading....

[letthembe]

There is a huge difference between decoding and comprehending, and that's where the difference in reading levels comes. If children are to love reading they must understand what they are reading, not simply decoding.