He is at the wrong reading level, how do I approach this?

[Afairread]

He is in year 4 and has not gone up a reading level for over a year. We have continued to read as normal, detailing all our reading to the teachers in our reading journal. At parents evening the teacher agreed to increase the level, but changed her mind the very next day at school. My child's self esteem and confidence is suffering and I have made the teacher aware of this. The gap is over three levels so too significant to ignore,
The teacher used the word inference, but I have done extra work with my child to explore this, and I don't agree and his comprehension results surely would disprove this in class. Why have no previous teachers had any issues with his reading? He normally gets full marks on his spelling test each week but now is made to feel like he is failing at school.
Any suggestions as to the best approach with the school? Exasperated😓 parent!

I'd message the teacher and ask for a time for a quick chat and I'd ask her what he needs to accomplish to move up and how you can help him.

None of the above. Some kids do better at home with parents (or parents see what they want to see). They probably haven't displayed it enough at school to warrant the rise to next level.

Keep on reading extra and different stuff with them at home and wait until next parents evening before raising it again if you truly believe they are doing what the teacher says they are not.

In the meantime, you could perhaps work on inference in non-reading situations so he gets extra practice but doesn't get despondent.

You could also maybe read a longer book with him at bedtime that gives plenty of opportunities, like a whodunnit.

BTW rote learning of spellings isn't an indicator of reading levels so is irrelevant to your case so don't raise that to "prove" your point.

Maybe he is more at ease with you and performing less at school?
And yes, ask the teacher first.
And please keep reading fun at home!

If you know what books the next level are start reading them with him. If he is managing them tell the teacher. If they never let him try how do they know he wouldn't cope?

What's inference got to do with reading really? Reading is seeing understanding and articulating words, inference is being able to jump to conclusions from reading things surely two different things to learn and grasp. Why hold back reading for lack of inference? That will come with experience.

You should have put an option of ‘do nothing, trust that the teacher knows what she’s doing’.

There is nothing in it for the teacher to hold a student back so she must think he’s at the right level.

There’s no reason your child should have their confidence dented unless you’re making a big deal about what level he is on. Relax, no-one will remember in 10 years who was on what level.

As PP said - make sure he is reading for enjoyment at home.

I disagree with some PPs. I'm an ex teacher and I do not think teachers are infallible. I'd be telling her that he can make perfectly valid inferences at home (if that's the case and he can) and you would like her to try him on the next level. I'd tell her it's damaging his self esteem and he wants the challenge. If he genuinely hasn't gone up a reading band in three years I'd be suspecting some special educational needs. So it's either a teacher with low expectations (they do exist -- not most teachers but a rare few sadly) or your child needs assessing IMO.

Sorry for over a year, not three years. I still mostly stand by my previous comment. I'd be wanting to discuss this.

@Bumblebeeinatree
"What's inference got to do with reading really? Reading is seeing understanding and articulating words, inference is being able to jump to conclusions from reading things surely two different things to learn and grasp"

Reading is much more than simply articulating words. It's also about understanding, inferring, predicting and grasping stories.

Ask the teacher what he needs to do. Make sure there are loads of different types of books at home. And stop talking to him about what reading level he's on.

Not changing levels on over a year would concern me enough to ask the teacher for a meeting.
I think that's really unusual.

Do they use a reading scheme? For instance Accelerated reader the child has to pass a quiz 3 times I believe to ‘move up’. If this is the case perhaps the inference questions have been the incorrect ones.
Inference is the trickiest, that even free readers can struggle with so it does seem odd if it’s teacher judgement.

In Y4, youngest ds was held on a reading scheme level well below his capabilities for nearly a year - because he was so bored with the books, he stopped engaging with them in school. Queried it multiple
times but was told he had to finish the level before she’d move him up. Teacher subsequently left, whole class were tested on reading age and his was found to be over 5 years ahead of chronological.

The experience deeply affected his self-esteem and attitude towards school; it took years to resolve.

As a former primary teacher, if I had a child not making any reading progress over a year I would be seriously investigating the possible reasons. Definitely speak to the teacher and ask what they’re doing to support your child - additional 1-1 reading session with an adult, intervention groups etc.

If they’re genuinely not seeing any improvement over the year they would also see difficulty in accessing other parts of the curriculum as the levels of literacy required ramp up.

I really don't put a lot of stock in reading levels tbh. They teach now in such an arse backwards way, confuse the poor buggers, have limited books to choose from depending what level you are. It's all bollocks.

I taught my kids to read before they started school and I'm so glad I did because school just sucks the fun out of books.

I just did what my mum did with me, take them to the library every week, pick some books that they actually WANT to read, including one that's a bit more challenging for them and sit with them for half hour at bedtime, helping them with it. All of them love books and reading so far.

I taught full word recognition, very little phonics although I did teach them to sound out unfamiliar words and use the context to work out what they meant and I covered the house in post it notes with everythings name on it. My youngest is now 3 so she is starting to learn do forever tripping over bits of paper with Fridge, Door, Chair written on them.

Spellings, we do Look, Cover, Write, Check.

Inference will be helped by mystery type books and just talking with you about what is happening in them and what do they think the character is feeling/thinking/will do next?

Just build his confidence up and let him pick his own reading books, even if they're a bit difficult. If he really wants to read it, he'll work harder at it.

None of the above.

You can't just say he's at the 'wrong' level and complain because you'd have liked to have seen more progress.

If his teacher has evidence he can't infer (even if he can decode) then she is right to use suitable resources to enable him to learn the foundation skills before moving up levels of challenge.

She's trained to do her job and you reading at home is good to support him, but doesn't equate to knowing best. Especially if you think a good score in a spelling test means he can have no issues in reading.

I would just explain to your child that teachers don't always get things right and the level they set them in school shouldn't affect his confidence. I agree that it's important to read more challenging books at home. I did this with my son when he struggled with literacy. The basic stories he read in the lower level reading schemes didn't encourage in him a love of reading. So instead I would read a book with him at night and then get him to read a few sentences. It would take a bit of time but he learnt the joy of reading imaginative books and reads a lot now he's an adult.

How are you going to inspire a child if you don't build their confidence that they are making progress or keep getting them to read the same unchallenging material? It doesn't make any sense to me and I wonder if it's some kind of educational dogma.

What's inference got to do with reading? Everything. If you can't make meaning by using information in the text alongside background knowledge to understand what is implied (instead of stated explicitly), then language comprehension is not secure.

But being demoralised doesn't help with learning. Anyway you can still learn inference from slightly more challenging reading material. Some children may grasp it immediately, others take more time but you can persevere with that while still inspiring your child.

We didn’t pay much attention to what reading level they put dc on. We had our own books and read those. Not sure it matters that much, as long as your dc is progressing nicely. Never filled out those reading book logs either. Teachers moved them up levels in school and I explained we had our own books at home. Both doing well at school. I would just focus on the love of reading and making sure they understand what they are reading.

We had the same issue. It was really putting DS off reading, so after many conversations, we just told the teacher we weren't reading the set books and i sourced my own.

Also In Y4. We’ve not engaged with the school reading scheme book all year. He’s reading plenty at home and also has a ‘tray book’ at school. They’re meant to change their reading book whenever they’ve finished it but no one appears to be checking and he’s been listened to once this year. If they can’t be bothered neither can I.

Inference is a big part of reading. It's one thing to be able to decode the words, but if you don't understand what they mean,your understanding will never improve. Don't assume that because something seems obvious to you that a child understands. As a TA, my job is to make sure they understand vocabulary, phrases, etc, when I read with them. You would be surprised at how often children don't have a clue what some things mean, even though they have just read the word...sometimes they have heard it before, but just don't know what it means. And this is very often the "Good" readers. This is why teachers do Guided Reading, so that children get to grips with comprehension...have you seen the reading paper in the SATs? Sometimes , it is difficult to answer as an adult!!! It is more than just vocab understanding, it is 'reading between the lines'.

It is very difficult to keep up with and ask meaningful questions when your trying to get through a class of children...reading takes up a lot of class time one way or another and we have so many other things to get through too.😐

Celebrate the fact that the dire school reading scheme books that come back are too easy, and can be completed in 5 seconds.
Then go to the library and get out as many books as take your child's fancy, and really enjoy them.

We did that too.