Are they still assessing reading?

[ladypavlova]

Everything really clicked with DD's reading towards the end of reception. They mostly do phonics bug books so it was hard to gauge reading bands, but in the last few weeks of term they sent additional banded books home and she came home with first a blue one and the next week a green one.

I've been doing Reading Chest with her at home because she loves it and green is definitely the right level.

She just had her first small group guided reading session with the teacher and told me they read a red level book. The one she has come home with is a phase 4 set 12 one which she read in 3 minutes flat. It looks about a red level to me.

What I'm wondering is - are teachers still assessing levels? Is she likely to be moved to harder books over the next few weeks? I don't want to march in and be all pushy parent at this stage especially as I accept I know a lot less about teaching a child to read than her class teacher.

But I don't want her to get bored either. I'll carry on doing green band reading chest at home but it is frustrating if she is reading really easy books at school.

Advice welcome please

The world is full of books. You can always get/borrow other books for her to read besides the ones the school gives you.

Obviously I can't answer for your school specifically, but I would say it's very likely that the teachers will use the first few weeks to get to know the children and assess their various levels. Also possible that the children are deliberately been given "easy" books either to build their confidence or to get them used to reading at home. However if she's still getting very easy books in a week or two I suggest it would be worth speaking to the teacher.

I'd imagine the reading record that the parent fills in would be a big clue for any teacher who was new to a child and genuinely wanted to assess what he or she could read. If the teachers are assessing pupils by deliberately giving them books that are to easy for them to read then they're probably assessing something else. (I don't know what, maybe their ability to do what they're told whether they like it or not.)

Ha! Maybe. We don't have a reading record though - seem to be the only school that doesn't!