Would you be concerned if all the class was on the same reading level?

[PollyPG]

I went to look around a private school yesterday. I really loved it as the atmosphere was great, lots of happy children, wonderful extracurricular activities, small class sizes, great headmistress and pastoral care etc. There are specialist teachers in each subject for the Prep School and they get very good results at 11 and 13.

But.... I was very concerned to see that in Reception that all the children were on the same book band - ORT Stage 2. I'm not so concerned at the actual level, but at the apparent total lack of differentiation. At the local state primary, which I also visited, children were on levels ranging from 1 to 8! Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I am concerned how indicative this may be of their teaching methods. The teachers did say that they differentiated for different abilities but this was a bit worrying as it seems that they don't practice what they preach. In Year 1, they all have the same spellings, which again I would have expected to have been differentiated.

Would this put you off a school?

BeenBeta - level 2 may be right for some children in Reception. It is definitely not right for all children. Simply giving children more and more books at the same level of challenge is not an appropriate way to develop their reading skills.

Children should be given the opportunity to read at a level which is appropriate to their ability/skills, NOT pushed into a forced structure of having to read every single book at a stage before being allowed to move on.

I was responding to mrz who seemed to be suggesting he would expect children to be ahead of Level 2.

I generally agree with your point but if the OP is looking at a fairly high league table school with fairly selective entry criteria and quite uniform abilty children as a result then all the class being on ORT Level 2 might be right - as long as differentiation occurs later.

Mrz is a she, and is very experienced in teaching Reception, BeenBeta. I agree with her - to have no differentiation until Year 2 is just bizarre. And the only people who believe that children need to read every single strand of ORT are you and the ORT rep who tries to convince us of this all the time. It isn't at all necessary, but I suppose in a school where no expense is spared on resources then they might as well be used.

Yes Beenbeta, I know you were responding to mrz. I was, however, adding my viewpoint, and supporting mrz's comment. I am also an Early Years teacher.

I work in a fairly high achieving school. However, as in all schools the children begin at different levels and develop at different rates.

I feel I must repeat myself. It is not appropriate to have all children in a class/year group on the same reading level.

It is also not appropriate to differentiate only from year 2 onwards.

Couldn't agree more. And ditto high achieving school, particularly in reading.

OK. I am just relating my RL experience. The differentiaion happened a bit later at DSs school and it worked.

By teh way, do any of you teach in a Prep school?

The methods are often quite different from a Primary.

No, however the end result seems to be the same - but without the bored 4/5/6 year olds.

Maybe I should be worrying about my DD's school then? DD can read ORT level 2 but she is one of the better readers. Most children are on pink or red levels with a handful on yellow and 1 child on blue. A school with very varied intake.

I have taught in a highly regarded pre-prep and prep.

The children were not on the same reading level.

Differentiation was used throughout.

Methods were no different from the state primaries in which I have taught.

Methods should not be very different from primary schools.

Hm, as a literacy co, I'd not be at all happy if all the children in year one had the same spellings. Learning spellings for tests is a bit of a purile task for lots of children and is often a bit of a waste of time, but to give e everyone in year one the same spellings to learn is very poor and very old fashioned IMO.
Sorry for the hijack OP but it's something I feel quite strongly about.

ooh can I thread hijack a bit. Littlefish - what were the main differences in your experience then? (Obviously I can't extrapolate from this to all state schools and all private schools but I'd find it interesting as someone who keeps wondering if the grass is greener in a prep).

"Ask them, you pay you can ask."

You can ask if you don;t pay as well!

I would be very unhappy with this in any school, regardless of sector.

I get the point about regularity, wordfactory, but if it's the same level 2 Ort books we had, they have such a limited number of words repeated that I can't see what a child would get from fluently reading more of the same. Regularity combined with appropriate challenge = best progress.

And of course, bright, motivated children will end up reading after this way of working, they just might not enjoy it or make the same progress as if they had received appropriate texts early on. They'd be better off not bothering with reading formally in reception at all, which some might advocate but probably wouldn't fill places in many schools.

This thread is making me worry once again about dd's Reception class. Only 3 or 4 out of the 30 children are on Level 2 books; the rest are on Level 1 or 1+, which is probably fine, except that it has seemed to me when helping with reading that several of them are finding their books too easy and might be ready to move up a level.

Could anyone advise how fluently a child should be reading their level before it is appropriate to move them up? If they are basically reading pretty easily but still sounding out a few words, would you move them up to the next one or keep them where they are until they are completely fluent at that level? The books the kids take home are only changed when parent helpers come in to hear the children read, and when I've come in I have been told that they should always get their new book from the same level as before, so I'm starting to wonder at what point they get to progress.

Sorry for slight hijack - I will ask the teacher when I go in this week but would be good to have opinions if anyone has a view.

We use PM Benchmark, which tests for accuracy and comprehension, giving a score to advise whether child shoud move to next level or not.

Was that a question to me or to the OP, squidgy? If me, the kids just choose their own new book from a box marked Level 1, 1+ etc whenever a parent volunteer comes in to hear them read (usually once a week if there are enough volunteers). Nothing gets sent out as such.

littlebylittle I understand what you mean.
And I can see that reading lots of books on the same level might sound dull and pointless.

What I would say, though, is that we steamed through them. The children were heard at school every day and we were expected to hear them every night. It wasn't unusual for two books to be sent home at the weekend. Several during holidays.

So although we might have read a lot of level two books, it didn't take long if you see what I mean. Then we'd move on up and read loads of threes. Then fours.

The progress was phenominal.

Also, I have a bit of thing about the endless race to move up levels that some parents have. Instead of ensuring that all the basics are properly covered and that the literacy toolbox is full, there's a desire to forge on for little purpose.

I think this partly comes from competitive parenting. Partly from a school's desire to do well in the league tables. And partly stems from that most modern fear that nothing should ever be less than scintilating

All I can say is that I have always been extremely happy with the teaching of English at my DC's school and given that I am a writer, it is hugely important to me as you can imagine.

Wordfactory, sounds just spot on. Not that you need me to tell you! We've had similar experience with dd, they change books every day if read so we've had the perfect balance of reading all the books and getting the grounding, but getting it at the right pace for dd, which happens to be pretty fast. If we'd had one book a week and had to read all the books in a level it would be a different matter. And I've no idea what books the others in her class read at or how often, but I imagine it's matched to the child. I hope thus doesn't contradict what I said earlier- no prob with reading all the books and getting a grounding, but as long as the books used to get the grounding match the child's current pace of learning. If dd's pace changes, so should the books. A whole class on one level seems unlikely. Same went for my friend's dd's school but the other way- they sent home books straight away that her dd couldn't read a word of, and hadn't yet been taught the skills to decode. She's not keen on reading at the mo, and hardly surprising.
I also think that schools and parents should make very little fuss of the level/colour their child is on in front of the child. You can't help but look and notice, I def do but I say nothing to dd, just talk to her about her reading. It worries me how aware some friends children seem to be aware of their numerical level at five years old. Not against competition but in reading it seems irrelevant and potentially damaging.
Zepherine, dd doesn't read truly fluently, she reads word by word, but moves to books with greater challenge when she can read them with only a word or two to sound out each time, when she has enough stamina to get through a good few pages at a time and clearly understands what's been going on after questioning. Might be wrong but I think waiting for absolute fluency might mean too low a level of challenge- for her.

No not good for all pupils to have the same level book, and definitely not the same spellings either!

I would go back and ask a lot of very specific questions, this sounds lazy at best....

no def not good - reminds me of ds old maths teacher in secondary school who told me at parents' eve that all her class were doing really badly and struggling with the work.she said she couldn't understand it. thank goodness she wasn't his teacher for much longer.