Yes another reading levels q.....

[maydaychild]

We had parents eve this week.
I have a beautifully well behaved DD. Overall I am pleased and happy.

But books!!! ORT

Is there a huge jump from blue to red?
Teacher still reluctant to put DD up, yet she whizzes through them very easily. Been on blue about 4-5 weeks and found them easy from the off.

My dd is a little lacking in confidence is a reason given, I agree.

Surely a level should present a challenge? Or should it be easy to build confidence?

Which is it and do a lot of people get stuck on blue for ages? Blue are one line and simple graphemes.
Red are four lines.

Is it a case of the class haven't been taught Phonics for words such as thought yet?

We are reading library books and she loves these but they have no banding so I can't compare.

Sorry, this has been done a zillion times before!

have they changed the colours around? I'm sure we went red, yellow, blue, green.

Anyway, DS1 was stuck on blue for ages. It was down to confidence and expression. he read them all in the same monotone voice and I had to try really hard to encourage him to liven up a little .

One day it just clicked and up he went.

We have had purple green blue
No monotone here, she expresses beautifully, I would say she takes the piss as well, the oh no and sound effects are very dramatic!

That's my point, it clicked ages ago.

Well in that case, I would continue doing what you are doing.

If she is enjoying books that are non-school books then you can keep doing your own thing.

I wouldn't say a few weeks was a long time. Maybe they want your DD to feel confidant before moving up, or maybe they only assess every few weeks.

DS was on a level for a couple of months and then jumped one entirely.

Also, some schools mix books up so you can progress through the band, often with 2 or 3 stages mixed under the same colour. Your DD may have started on lower stage and moved onto higher.

If I were you I would give it til Easter, read your own books over the holiday and possibly ask to be reassessed when term restarts if they don't do it already.

Also, is she in reception?

Thanks shootinfoot - voice of reason!

Yes in reception.

As the mother of two teenagers and ds3 (5) I would say don't stress about it. I know ds can read far harder books than the one's he is given at school and sometimes I want to say something but I felt the same way about the older boys and, believe it or not, they are great readers. Lots of practice is good at her age. Get books from the library or buy some of her choice and let her teacher get on with the school ones. I save my arguments with the school for the big things!

They need to be able to retell the story in their own words, predict what is going to happen, answer simple questions about the story. talk about the front cover, back cover, blurb (stupid word) author, illustrator... etc.

talking as the pot (kettles black and all that) try not to stress, do your own thing from the library, point out the phonemes she has not learnt yet and do lots of talking about the book. it will all come in useful later. they do sometimes clam up in school and do not read as well. if you ae concerned go and ask the teacher what it is that dd needs to be able to do to get the next level of books.

we did our own thing at home and dd steadily progressed from yellow band 3 to white band 10 whilst she slogged her way through every book in pink and a fair few in red band at school. she was still reading red bands at the start of year one but has now jumped to a selection of books from keystage 2 which are gold/white band books and we are working on some of the non-decoding skills of reading.

I just borrow high level books from our local library. So when the school gave her level 4 books to bring home I would borrow level 5 books from the library. It works fine for my dd.