Jump between Gold and White book bands

[Rosebud05]

Just that really. DD has been reading gold since before the summer, fluently and needing help with maybe one or two words a book. Has felt like she's very much 'in control' of them ie flicking back and forth to check something from earlier in the story, predicting what's going to happen etc.

She came home with a white book on Friday which presented her with considerably more challenge ie a couple of words a page she needed help with, including not understanding what they meant. She was a bit intimidated with being faced with so much text, but she gave it a good go.

I don't remember this sudden difference between other consecutive bands. I'm not at all concerned about her progress or anything, just wondered if this happens with the higher book bands?

There's quite a big jump between blue and green too, in my opinion.

Depends totally on the book. Some white bands ones will be easier for different children depending on their word bank.
It's just unfortunate that she choose a more challenging first one. Most of the bands do this, its just clearly your child has a good word bank and flew through the others with ease.

I agree with PP that books really vary. The non-fiction white books in particularly seem to require a much larger vocabulary and background knowledge. But then by this stage of reading it's not so much about the decoding the words but more about comprehension/inference/picking out themes, so I guess the books do need to be that bit harder.

DD is also on white and she always has a home book on the go with her reading book - she finds the reading books a chore.

As others have said there is a range within each bookband. The recommended level is one where they can accurately read between 90 and 95% of the words without help.

Thanks - that's a good point about books varying in their difficulty. She can read well over 95% of the words, but it's very different to her whizzing through easier levels, I guess.

And yes, she may have just chosen a book that's quite difficult for her in terms of vocab etc.

Thanks.