Reading levels question - what level is right/ readability etc.

[dragonmother]

I have a reading levels question. This much-touted thing that they should be able to read 90 or 95% of the words without help - is that decoding or understanding their meaning?

Ds breezes through his school reading books in terms of reading the words and has lovely expression but on his current level (which is quite ahead for his age) there are quite a few words he has to ask me the meaning of. He would probably get the gist of them but likes to know exactly what they mean.

So does this mean he's on the right level? The vocab doesn't challenge him at all when it comes to actually reading the word out loud.

The teacher only reads with her every three weeks from a scheme book but I would be shocked if this is the only reading she ever does.

Text is encoded speech. A reader first decodes words back into speech subvocally. Whether or not the child understands the word depends on his or her language development viz prior experiences of that word. We all have two vocabularie. Words we use frequently in our daily lives are our 'expressive' vocabularies and words we encounter mainly in written form in books, magazines or in TV etc. This is our receptive vocabulary. English lessons are intended to increase both of these vocabularies.
Hope this helps.