Reading in Y1 - which NC level (if any) would be considered G&T or unusually advanced??

[NorhamGardens]

What sort of level would a 5 year old in Y1 be reading out to be considered G&T or unusually advanced?

I must be a pushy mum then, as my DD is reading The Chamber of Secrets. . Really don't remember telling her that she had to read it to impress other children and parents.

How old is she? Because I really think you need to be at least 7 for the Chamber of Secrets.

1. And disappears to her room with "Harry" .

I think that DCs can sort it out for themselves-they really won't read something that they don't enjoy. I daresay that I read lots of 'unsuitable' things as a DC.

She didn't want to read them at six, she was into Jacqueline Wilson then. I foresee Harry being with us for a while.

There was a huge backlash when it was suggested that publishers put ages on books-quite rightly so. One 9yr old might want to read Horrid Henry-another might want to read Dickens. They will sort it out themselves.

At the school where DD is just being able to read very high stage books of reading scheme will not place the child on G&T, in fact child has to be pretty amazing at everything and ahead considerably at everything else to placed on G&T.
It is well known that early readers will stagnate at some point and rest of the class will quickly catch up, hence just being able to read very well in it's on right is not considered to be a gift.
Ds 14 years ago was recognised as a "very able" mathematician, and carried on upward curve throughout his school years, although considered at the time as pretty amazing at maths, it was never considered to be gift/genius type of thing, he was just lot more able then others in his class.
Worth remembering, very small number of children are genuinely gifted, very high IQ is the first indication, and such child will be excelling at everything and be very ahead of the children of same age, usually reaching all the milestones very early, and achieving with excellency throughout school years.

I knew there had to be something I disagreed with you about, exoticfruits!

exoticfruits - the fact that children enjoy reading something does not make it suitable for them. There is emotional content in the later Harry Potter books (agree the first one or two are fine, even for 5 year olds) that make them entirely unsuitable reading for younger kids - of course they WANT to read them, they're exciting and gripping BUT that des not make them appropriate and any responsible parent or teacher would not expose a 5 year old to that any more than they'd expose them to horror films or violent computer games. The fact that it's the written word doesn't make it automatically 'good' - the content may be v unsuitable, even if the kids are doing 'good' things like improving their reading skills/vocab at the same time.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, say, is a great read. For an 11+ minimum (ideally a lot older - it was certainly written with far older kids in mind, from a sex, violence and dealing-with-major-issues kind of way). Not for a 5 year old.

Do the parents who let their 5 year olds read this stuff actually bother to read any of this stuff first themselves, or are they just oblivious to the contents of books their dcs read???

i think a lot depends on whether the child is summer born or autumn born too. if dd was a month younger and just starting reception reading early chapter book and doing the maths she is doing now, it would be unusual though not that unusual.) as it is she is in y1 and the top side of normal for year one.

I think the whole 'G&T' thing is a bit of a minefield. From a practical point of view - both as a parent and as a teacher - the rough yardstick would be 'someone who is so far advanced in a particular area that to keep moving them forwards in their learning they need individually planned tasks almost all the time and / or specially planned intervention, whether that be 1:1 work on a more advanced area or special provision at a whole school / whole cluster of schools level'.

That 'NC level' for this will vary depending on the class and the school. In DS's first school (left in mid Year 1) he absolutely met the above criterion - he was on the SEN register at action plus because they had to call in outside specialists to assess him and recommend how best to teach him because none of the general class work, even differentiated 3/4/5 times as the teacher normally did, was at the right level for him. Just before we left, there was a proposal to move him from Year 1 into the Year 3/4 class in order to access appropriate lessons.

He moved to his current school on exactly the same NC levels. Although he is still on the G&T register (that 'technical' 10% identification thing) he is absolutely not in need of individually planned activities all the time - the ability profile of the class and the school are different, so he has near-peers who he can be taught with.

So to answer the OP's question, I don't think that there is a general answer - there might be an answer in a particular class in a particular school, but not overall.

Also, on HP - DD (8) has read up to Goblet of Fire in a great 2 week orgy of summer reading. Of course she wasnt to read 'Order of the Phoenix' etc, but we have agreed that she won't yet, simply because she will enjoy it SOOOO much more when she is older. DS had the reading ability to have read the full set at 5, should they have been available at the time - but he doesn't have the emotional maturity (still doesn't, tbh) to handle them. He just read reference books about sport aimed at adults instead (odd child - has anyone else ever read Wisden Cricketer's Almanac in a cover-to-cover fashion before, I wonder??)

I think that you are missing my entire point! 5 yr olds don't want to read Deathly Hallows-they are not ready for it-they would not enjoy it and they would stop (if they started in the first place). It is very different from reading about quiddich and jumping chocolate frogs and platform 9 and three quarters etc.

I have never seen a 5yr old (who can choose their own chapter books) reading anything they don't enjoy. (if away from their mother who might possibly want to give them 'improving' books-but even that is unlikely)

I could name several 5 yr olds who have read Philospher's Stone-I couldn't give you one who has read Chamber of Secrets let alone Deathly Hallows. Noone has to tell them-they simply wouldn't choose to.

You may not have met them, exoticfruits - but a poster on this thread showed off that her dc HAD read Harry Potters and When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit at this age. So these kids do exist.

You have tried to argue kids will not choose to read inappropriate-age books. I just don't think that's true. Harry Potter is v addictive - I had to take it off my dds and ban it until they were older! Kids won't know what a book will be like before they start it; esp something like HP where they enjoyed earlier volumes, they might well start to read later ones, without realising how different later volumes are from earlier ones. Which is why I do think it's the job of responsible parents/teachers to keep an eye on their reading matter and not assume that if kids enjoy it then it is automatically 'ok'.

I remember when my dd was about 9 (and, incidentally, identified by her school as g&t for reading, FWIW), being v cross that she had been sent home from school with a reading book that was basically a teenage read, all about boy/girlfriends, as her reading level was so high. My dd would have been happy to read it - she reads anything that doesn't move - but that did not make it anything other than totally unsuitable. I sent it back to school with appropriately stroppy note to the teacher. If you teach kids of this age then it is YOUR responsibility to check what books they get from/read at school. You can't expect a 5 year old to police themselves.

Worth remembering, very small number of children are genuinely gifted, very high IQ is the first indication, and such child will be excelling at everything and be very ahead of the children of same age, usually reaching all the milestones very early, and achieving with excellency throughout school years.

This is not a true statement imo and infact many genuinly gifted children actually underachieve in school nevermind excell at everything!

Never heard of truly gifted underachievers mrshears, where do you get your facts from?
www.nagcbritain.org.uk/parents.php?id=93

Plenty of truly gifted children underacheive at school,this can be due to boredom from being underchallenged and/or poor differentiation.
google it, there are plenty of articles.

Some 5 year olds may be reading Harry Potter, but how much of it do they actually understand.

A friend of mine is a KS2 teacher and she dispairs of teachers and parents pushing their kids to read books that are beyond their years, or allowing them to. She has had to move kids who had previously been reading ORT stage 11 onwards down to stage 6 or 7 and re-teach them, so they actually understand the comprehension of it. My sister who is KS1 (yr 2 team leader) says that she sees the same problems.

It is great to encourage kid to choose their own boks, but some sensible parental guidance is often needed.

I bet the Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit was just a boastful mummy. I can't tell you how many 5 yr olds I taught, in a lot of supply teaching, and I never saw a 5yr old reading anything unsuitable.

giftedkids.about.com/od/schoolissues/p/underachieve.htm

sorry i should add that link is for strictlovingmum

You quoted me and made a sweeping generalisation!, properly challenged these children usually are, because their giftedness is hard to miss, again we are not talking about above/very able children here, but rather unique 5% of population truly gifted, who are very advanced in the most things they do.
I teach musical instrument to pupils, and in all years of my experience I had several very able and talented pupils, who by no means were extraordinary, and only one(little girl) who started playing and composing at the age of three, showing a extraordinary talent, in turn today she is studying at the Moscow Conservatoire of Music.
So there is a lot of difference between true gift and high ability, former can not be cultivated, it comes from within and it has to be nurtured in order to flourish.

Often, those children who are 'able / bright' (top one or two in a class) without being exceptional do very well, whereas the exceptionally gifted (the 1 in 10,000 type children) often underperform. This book (which I read for a PGCE assignment) is very interesting on the subject:

www.amazon.co.uk/Exceptionally-Gifted-Children-Miraca-Gross/dp/0415314917/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316008946&sr=8-1

Actually it was you who made the sweeping generalisation.
You stated 'such children will be excelling at everything(not always the case),very ahead of children the same age and achieving with excellency throughout the school year's' all of which is a sweeping generalisation and not neccesarily true.

Thank you teacherwith2kids