Reading (again, sorry!)

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Was just wondering what level the average reception child is on at the end of reception, generally?

NOT being pushy AT ALL, just a first time parent wondering! :)

I am aware there will be a massive variation and wanted to know if there was a 'target' as such?

(Disclaimer: I dont know what other children are on/doing, and nor do I care ( :) ) was just asking about MY child so I could gauge where they are at, because I think they might be a little behind and wanted something to reassure me!)

That is why I loved DS1's (sadly now retired) reception teacher. She also publishes books herself so is in no way anti reading, and she always said that if a child wanted to take a story book from the classroom home over the weekend to share with their parents then they were more than welcome. But she thought that Reception was far too early to start stressing about ORT.

The thing with learning to read is that it isn't a nice predictable process, which makes assessing what children 'should' be doing so very difficult.
When starting school, my DDs were at very similar levels - could read basic words, knew all but the most complex phonics, could write a bit. After that it was all change - DD1 worked steadily through levels, by the end of reception was on )RT7 and everyone (including me) was perfectly happy. By H/T yr1, something went 'click' and she could suddenly decode/blend everything, and sight-read every tricky word under the sun. By Christmas she was on free readers as her comprehension semed to fly ahead too.
DD2 seemed not to be getting anywhere until about Christmas, we thought 'well, she'll do it in her own time' - she was completely average. Then just after Christmas in Reception she had the 'click' in a big way, could suddenly read words like 'friendly' and 'dangerous', skipped from ORT 1 straight to ORT 7 and found that easy. She ended up on free readers by H/T in Yr 1, with matching comprehension.
Both of them now love to read anything and everything as long as it has a godo story, which to my mind is the most important thing, but they got there in very different way. I don't know what the 'clicl' is, but it's a very sudden, almost overnight thing taht happened to both my girls - neither I nor their teachers could ahve predicted it at all, so we just let them get on with it...