What book band is this book?

[popgoestheweezel]

ds is currently on yellow band books. This weekend he has come home with this non fiction book 'the snail' a heinemann first library bug book. www.amazon.co.uk/Bug-Books-Paperback-Chris-Macro/dp/043101681X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319958481&sr=1-4
It's much, much longer than the ones he usually has. It's 32 pages with 3 or 4 sentences to a page. However, he has read it without any problems (not all in one go though) so maybe it is a yellow one?

An example page reads:
Snails come in different sizes and have shells of different colours. Some snails are very small. Some snails are very big. This is a giant African land snail. It can grow to be longer than your foot!

Is this yellow, has he been moved up a band or is it a mistake?

Why not ask his teacher on Monday?

I won't be doing drop off or pick up this week due to work commitments so won't get a chance to see her. I don't think it's worth asking for a meeting about, only a minor point after all!
When I saw the book on fri night, I thought 'he's never going to be able to read this but he has, no problems. So it just made me wonder that's all.

Could you send in a note to ask?

Or just see what th next book is? If it wasn't too hard for him, I can't really see the issue.

Seeker, there is no issue- I was merely curious.
This primary education forum is a place to ask these sorts of questions isn't it, or have I got the whole idea of this mumsnet thing totally wrong?

Some of the factual books are on a different band to what you'd expect. It may be that they've sent it home thinking you'd read it to him. It may be that he was showing an interest in snails and they thought he would enjoy that book.

Write a note in the reading record along the lines of "this seemed more difficult than his previous books, but he very much enjoyed reading it and managed most of it without help." If you wish to you could ask whether it's p a level, but you'll probably have a level on the next book so you'll be able to see without asking.

I've found the non-fiction books to be harder than the fiction books of the same level too. They seemed to use harder language and also the fiction books tend to follow a formula that is a lot easier to get the hang of.

dd's yellow band books have 3-4 sentences per page, very repetitive, like the ones you included. not sure how many pages. don't pay that much attention to be honest. the usborne phonics books are quite long, and varied across the series difficulty wise, but were all yellow band.

dh had a cancelled meeting so managed to go in this morning.
Apparently its not a yellow book (teacher isn't quite sure where it's from as no sticker on it, but certainly a few levels higher). As he has got on with it well she thinks perhaps they'd better see if he needs moving up.
Reading this book is the best reading I've ever heard from him, in fact I asked if someone had read it to him previously as he was unusually fluent, but apparently not. Previously he has complained about school books being 'boring and they don't even tell me anything I want to know' I think maybe it is because he is actually interested in this one.

Ha Ha DS did that too. Bought home a black banded book (schools own band) and he was on white. I never thought he'd be able to read it but he could and enjoyed it so his teacher agreed he could keep it and moved DS up.

Sounds like he has a lovely teacher who will work in partnership with you - this is my first year experience of this (DS now yr 3) and I'm finding it much easier.

My DS loved the non-fiction books, maybe partly a boy thing and was always far more interested in them whenever he got the choice over the monotony otherwise known as the Magic Key (sorry but two readers flogging them to death has really been the pits!)!!! Our teacher always recommended they read the level below their normal level when reading non-fiction because they always have a lot of subject specific words. I hope they do carefully considering moving him up. Alternatively if they don't, most schools do have non-fiction and often poetry for all the levels so you could ask for more of them since he is enjoying them more, our school was very obliging in offering them whenever I said he was becoming reluctant to read anything. They would rather your child reads something than absolutely nothing because they are bored with what they have!!!

dd2 made me laugh this week as she was so bored with the school books she decided to read the newspaper for her reading homework instead. she was glued to it for about half an hour and when dh came home she was briefing him about everything that was news locally. he was completely bemused. she's lost her reading record though, so i haven't written it in yet. i do wonder if the teacher will notice.

There is a kids newspaper online. www.firstnews.co.uk Some of the content can be a bit grown up (as is true of all newspapers!) but our school recommends the paper itself and often has some floating round for the Y2 plus children to have a read of!
My philosophy is better to get them reading something that appeals to them than letting them be bored with their school books! So I always let mine choose their own books at the library (fiction, non-fiction, audio books etc) which sometimes is not level appropriate but it is something that interests them and appeals to their character! So read signs, posters, newspapers anything, they soon realise that the better they can read, the sooner they will be able to read you emails etc etc!!!!!

Plus I forgot to mention in the last post... Oxford Owl which has loads of books online which kids can listen to and/or read, done by Oxford Reading Tree levels/age. Both my kids love the opportunity to go on the computer and reading books online!! Apparently they are extending the number of books available soon, so certainly worth watching closely for those with kids beyond level 8/9!! Only up to about level 9 now!

Just realised I've crossed posts by accident!!! Ha ha stupid moment!!! But at least it's applicable!!!

that's really funny - it was perfect.

The teacher has said that the reason he did so well with it is that he was interested in that book (no, really? ) But all the same they'd like to leave him where he is. I'm pretty sure she's not read with him as she's made no note to that effect (in fact a teacher hasn't read with him in weeks) so not quite sure how he's been assessed.
He has come home with a yellow biff & chip last night, which he read easily but with little enthusiasm. I really don't understand the logic.
My worry is that I thought dd was not allowed to progress in year 1, but didn't push as thought the 'teachers know best'. However she was put up 3 levels in the first two weeks of yr2 which made me think I must have been right.
After making almost no progress in reading at all in yr1 (and also, as it turns out, falling way behind in maths and having to go into a catch up remedial group alongside 12 other children from her class when the yr2 teacher realised the gaps in their knowledge. But that's another story) in yr2 she flew through the levels and was soon free reading.
I'm worrying that we're going to go through a repeat performance here.

Kistigger, interesting that you say your teacher recommended they choose the level below for non-fiction. I had a look on reading chest and would guess that this book would be a green(from their description of number of pages and number of sentences per page).