Hi raa12:
I found this for Staffordshire County (not my own county by the way) but helpful to explain typical book banding in schools: education.staffordshire.gov.uk/.../BookBandsNCReadingLevels.doc and from Usborne publishers here www.usborne.com/downloads/book-bands/urp-book-bands-nc3.pdf. Obviously hard to know if this is the system followed by your school - but it's likely to be the case. If so orange band is working to 1a which at the start of Y2 is pretty typical - so first thing you should be thinking is that your DD is doing o.k., but you need to be keeping up practice with reading. If your school follows this system you DD only needs to improve 2 sub-levels to achieve the target NC Level 2b for KS1 SATs end of Y2.
Since you think comprehension may be the weakness - try to really discuss your DD's school story books through with her. Maybe even part-way through reading a book for the first time, discuss what she thinks might happen next. Once it's finished - discuss alternative endings or what she things might happen next. Talk about what she likes/ dislikes about books - the language, the photographs, the illustrations, the new things she learned (non-fiction), the new words she likes, etc.... Make a point of checking she understands the meaning of words - both my girls were slow to ask what something meant, and tended to just guess meaning, often incorrectly; so when you come across a new tricky word, just double check the understand what it means.
Both of my DDs have a lot of difficulty writing and often complain their hands hurt. In part this is complicated by the fact that there is so little written work (as homework or in school) - so much is done on computers now that I don't think they're getting as much practice as I did 'in the day'.
So I've learned over the years (DD1 in Y5/ DD2 in Y3) to be sneaky and get them to send letters, cards or post cards whenever possible.
Trips/ days out - have them send a postcard to friends/ relatives or even a teacher.
Invitations - if you are having a party (whatever the occasion) - have your DD write the invitations.
Thank you cards - thank you notes for any gifts are a huge hit - especially with Aunties/ Uncles or Grandparents.
Letter to Father Christmas
Write letters to competitions in magazines/ children's books rather than e-mailing entry.
Write letters to favourite authors (via publisher)/ favourite tv show/ actor.
Have them write out shopping lists or to do lists.
Encourage them to keep a diary - for writing stories, writing about a bad day, writing about a good/ great day, making up songs, drawing pictures, etc... all good practice.
If you have a reading diary for the school - encourage your DD to write (even a sentence or two is fine at first) about what they're reading. Did they like a particular character or the story. Did they like the illustrations. Is this a favourite author - if so, why? Why they didn't like a book? etc....
If they have weekly spelling lists - don't just let them stop at copying out the word 3 time - have them write sentences. No point making them write a sentence for each word - can seem too much to a child. But encourage them to devise sentences using as many spelling words as possible - the only rule is that the sentence has to make sense and the words can't be changed to work (i.e. can't change their to theirs, etc...).
I did find for both girls that Y2 started that shift to 'joined up' or cursive writing - which can be quite tricky. There are handwriting workbooks out there for practice with joined up writing (try amazon or good bookshops/ newsagents).
There also are some free handwriting worksheet websites out there - which also can be useful - for example www.writingwizard.longcountdown.com/multi-word_handwriting_worksheet_maker.html - you just chose the style you want for the word to copy or can print them out blank.
HTH