Year 1 Reading Books Too Easy

[artichaut27]

My DS2 is 5 and starting Year 1. He had entered Reception on Blue band (he knew all phonics and alternative sounds then already) and wasn't moved up all of reception, when at home he was reading Orange-Turquoise books.

He really progressed a lot this summer, and has been reading Early Readers (Horrid H and Captain U) to me, to his brother and to himself. He's currently reading a Lime book with me.

I told the teacher about his progress this September. But she put him back on Blue. She had him read a Green book and said he wasn't reading fluently with expression and there was one word he didn't seem to understand.

He goes to tuition with his brother (his choice), and his tutors say he's reading is excellent and fluent.

At home, he read words like "experience", "muttered", "bellowed" etc. by sight. He knows the sound difference between "heart" and "heard". He understands what he reads perfectly, and retells plots with nuances and details. He just sounds a bit robotic at time, but sometimes at home he does a goofy robot voice on purpose. When he reads funny books the expression is there.

My DS1 with SEN reads very well but never with expression and he has been moved book bands regularly. His lack of expression was never an issue.

Him bringing back easy level boring Biff and Chip, has sunk my morale.

Last year he did well at reception on the emotional and social aspect, but he did notice that he didn't "learn" much new.

He's pretty 'laid-back', so teachers are quite happy to leave him alone, which I don't think it cultivates the right/growth mindset for him. I'm happy to do the extra activities outside of school, but I'd like school to acknowledge where he is and taking him further.

Just do your own reading at home and don’t bother with school books. What happens if he doesn’t read them? Or just quickly read them, fill in his record as read and continue to read your own. Or fill in his reading record with books he’s read at home too. I wouldn’t give it a lot of thought. He’s only been at school a couple of weeks.

Normally I’d agree with pp to just carry on providing your own books... but I think the fact that in their eyes he hasn’t been able to move up a book band in a whole year is worth pushing back on. Doesn’t say very much about their teaching if his reading has progressed at all since the start of reception.

Good point ArfArfBarf
I volunteer at the school and last year I've seen him read with his teacher in his guided reading group. He read books with no challenges for him, with the group of strongest readers of his class. He did that most of the year.
He was so bored that the teacher had to keep on reminding him where his spot was. It was a bit painful to watch, but by that point I had given up grumbling.

I just don't understand how 'expression' in reading supersedes other skills like word attack, phonics/blends/alternative spelling knowledge, sight words mental bank... It's not like he's decoding dumbly, which is what I think they suspect we do at home.

At home, we pause, ask questions about comprehension, vocabulary, and make plot predictions.

The issue with DS2 (who sweet and charming) is motivation, and he's happy to coast, not try or only work for retribution.

I'm dreading another year of him coasting and not progressing unless I do work with him after school.

Tricky. You’ve informed his new teacher about the progress he’s made with reading this summer, and she’s assessed him and decided to keep him on blue books. In her professional opinion, based on what she has seen/heard, this is where he should be. She may be right. She may be wrong. Either way, I think you have to leave that one aside for now, and hope that when she next assesses him she deems him ready to move up. His book band at school might annoy you, but it won’t hold back his reading.

As PPs have said, you can continue to do exactly what you’ve been doing at home, by providing suitable books and supporting his reading. As long as you are happy he is not getting into bad habits (such as guessing words), and that you are discussing phonics where appropriate, and discussing the meaning of words, inference etc, there’s no harm in helping him to develop his reading outside school. Just roll your eyes at the ‘silly’ reading levels and carry right on.

If you feel he is generally not challenged at school, I think that is worth keeping on top of. My DD was well catered for by her experienced Reception teacher, but in Y1 the teachers never quite kept up with her. She frequently came home saying she finished the work, and the extension work, then helped person A and then person B, then did some quiet reading. I encouraged her to make herself a ‘positive’ problem for the teachers by working quickly but carefully and then asking for more/harder work. DD was motivated and confident enough to do this, but if your DS2 has a tendency to be lazy if unmotivated, this approach may not work.

When is the first parents’ evening? Ours is normally at the end of the first half term, so we just held on until then for a proper chat with the teacher.

I would definitely say that reading is the least of your worries as it is easily supplemented at home.

It's obviously not holding him back but I would find this really irritating! My year 1 dc is a good reader but not as good as yours seems to be and has been moved up through the bands quite quickly. If anything the book we have now is a bit tricky. Decoding is fine but the nuances of the story not so much. I would try another chat and ask if you can have a couple of higher band books alongside the blue ones so you have some variety. I've always found teachers to be happy to do this and pleased at the increasing confidence and progress.

My dd stayed on Red throughout Year 1. She was actually able to read. Her teacher just didn’t notice. At parents evening I very mildly suggested that she could read harder books. The teacher gave me that condescending smile that says ‘deluded middle class mother’, and said she’d reassess when she had the time.

I thought of making a fuss, but then decided dd went into school with a smile every day - which was probably more important than worrying about reading levels.

Dd went on to get level 3 at the end of the infants, and greater depth at the end of juniors in reading.

I don’t think she’s been particularly held back by Year 1 reading levels. However, she was child number 4. There is no way I could have been that laid back with pfb, or even psecondb.

Thanks for very useful insights!

My DH's aunt is an experienced retired KS1 teacher. She spotted that DS2 had a knack for reading when he started decoding three letter words just turned 3 yo. She read with him this summer and after 3 days he was reading to himself and pretty fluently. She's magic! I wish she taught him. So, I'm following her cues to make progress at home. I'm using Dr Seuss to get the expression going.

He now is enthusiastic about reading and he reads to himself/to his brother in bed.

I like the 'deluded middle class mother '@ Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies I had to suffer the mild scorn when trying to convince school that DS1 had dyspraxia.

Having to try and convince that DS2 is a quick learner is proving as challenging. There is a lot of weird subterranean battle of will at stake with teachers when mums advocates for whatever needs our DCs may have. Yes, we all think our DCs are special, and the 'middle class mum' might be particularly guilty of it. It doesn't mean the needs are all delusions.

I digress.

I just feel that his learning work should be done at school, not at home. Any work done at home eats up on downtime when he should be playing. I'm annoyed that I'm still having to supplement his learning.

It's not made easy by his lack of ambition. And as you rightly guessed @LetItGoToRuin, DS2 will never volunteer for extra challenge.

I'm reading Carol Dweck's Mindset at the moment and it works quite well when he resists effort. I'm trying to nip maladaptive aspects of his 'laid-back' nature in the bud.

I'd think that even if they'd put your DS2 onto appropriate level reading books, he'd still be reading very easy books for group activities at school e.g. guided reading. So there would be no improvement there. Accordingly the reading books only matter for at home, where you can simply give him other, more fun books to read.

I also think it is a teeny bit strange to think of a 5 year old as 'coasting'. In many places he wouldn't even be at school yet. He would still be able to read, presumably, but yet nobody would worry about him spending time in Kindergarten or similar simply playing, messing about with his friends, listening to stories being read to him. Nobody would worry that he might be making more progress if only... or that he wasn't getting enough 'challenge'.

So part of me wants to say 'just relax and don't worry, isn't it great that school is easy for him'.

But I do also understand where you are coming from, as I too have a DS who likes to walk the easy path and coast along, and about whose 'mindset' (and also self-image) I have always been concerned. And I did NOT want to make him 'work' at home, in the precious little time he had between school and bedtime.

What we did was, sort of, ignore what happens at school (to an extent), and provide DS with developmentally appropriate learning opportunity/challenges at home - but always keeping in mind that 'developmentally appropriate' at age 5 basically means 'self-directed play'. So basically we maximised his 'unstructured time' at home so he could do what he felt like.
For example, we got him tons of books that he devoured. For fun and out of choice! That didn't stop them at times challenging his reading abilities and stretching him. Or, we went lots of places by bike - always an enjoyable activity for him - helping him develop his sense of space, direction, how different places in his world relate to each other. Or simply not shying away from discussing 'difficult' things when they came up, using complex language.
It was only when he was 7 that we started looking for some more concrete and explicit 'challenges' that would help him progress towards the kind of goals that are measured in school assessments. That was also the time he started playing chess, where he learnt so much about losing, coming second (or even last) and yet keeping going, about how hard work pays off, and about how there is always someone out there who is better than you -, that we soon started relaxing about the 'mindset' he might be/had been developing at school.

I think I mostly agree with you, but I think there is little you can do - if a teacher doesn't challenge a child, they probably simply won't, no matter what you say to them - and I also think at age 5 you can relax a bit and allow him to 'coast' another year or two, rather than make him 'work' outside of school. At the same time keep an eye on his happiness, on the self-image and 'mindset' he might be developing (make sure he knows you value his effort rather than 'how clever' he is or what bookband he reads) and when he is a little older and ready for some more structured 'challenges', think about introducing something like a musical instrument, learning a new language, or as in our case, chess.

Just let him read what he wants at home. This is what we did. Ds was reading Harry Potter at 5. Teachers knew and let him at it.

Thanks brilliotic I completely get your point about his age, "coasting" and that challenge might not be that important just yet. I'm French and formal education doesn't start until age 6-7. It's just sometimes he is so mature that I often forget how old he actually is.

With DS1 with dyspraxia, at that age I was just wanted him to be left alone, as he refused to touch a pen at home for a whole year, because he was so put off with the intensive handwriting sessions in Reception (he's changed school since then).

One of DS2 two teachers picked up on the fact that he won't try and go further than he's asked to. So she's gently been working on motivation/mindset. She also said they are not moving book band because he's too young (he's end of spring boy). We'll continue reading our stuff at home.

I'm signing in up to drums classes this term, he's very auditory and wants to play music, so that'll be great.

Funny thing though is that last night he decided to read Green Eggs and Ham to his whole class today. So I asked if he wanted to have a practice. He did and started reading with brilliant expression. He paused and turned to me gleefully and said: "I can really feel I'm in character!"

He's been saying for a year that he wants to be an actor and a film director. I'm starting to think he's actually serious about it