reading levels - am I being a bit precious?

[igivein]

DS is in Y2. He's bobbing along in the middle ability-wise, which I think is pretty good, since he was late-August born and very 'young' when he started school.

Reading only really started to 'click' for him towards the end of year one, and he ended the year reading green level. We carried on reading over the summer, and by the time he went back to school he'd read all the green books, so started bringing orange home. He didn't have any problems with them, he just brings them home, reads them and takes them back.

I'm starting to think it's about time he moved up a band again, as he hasn't had anything in any way challenging yet this year. Anyway, we were chatting about school 'what sort of a day have you had?' etc and he tells me that one of the other boys in his reading group is now on orange level too, and he hopes the others catch up soon as they have to keep reading green books in the reading group at school until they're all ready for orange. The comments in his reading book from the teacher / TA always say 'read well today' 'reads with fluency' 'showed good understanding' etc.

So, finally getting to the point ... is DS being left treading water at school and should I say something, or does it not really matter much? It seems to me that he should possibly be reading two bands above what he's being asked to do at school. I know there's not that much difference between the colour bands and you need to consolidate at each level, but I'd have thought that if he's showing he's mastered one level he should be being encouraged to move on.

I wondered if maybe he was a little ahead of his reading group, but they think he would struggle in the next group up, or it would unbalance the numbers in the group or something. I've put comments in his reading book along the lines that he's finding them really easy and they're not presenting a challenge, but would I be really pfb to ask the teacher why he's not getting harder books? I do try and encourage him to read other stuff at home, but in his six year old brain this isn't 'proper' reading, and doesn't count like the books he gets from school!

[igivein]

So I had a word with the teacher at pick-up time. He agreed with me and said if ds wasn't finding the current books a challenge he'd move him up a band and see how it went. He said the four children in ds's reading group all seemed to be coming along quite well at the moment and he was thinking about moving them all up anyway. So that's good. Just got to sort out his allergy to learning spellings now ...

[survivingwinter]

That's good

[shebird]

Excellent news:) I got tired of waiting for DDs teacher to listen to her read and move up. I also think DD gets a bit nervous reading for teachers etc so does not read as confidently as at home. Eventually I just asked would it be ok if we tried another level and teacher was ok about it. DD has moved up 2 levels this half term. I think parents listen to reading everyday so are naturally more aware than teachers of progress.

[learnandsay]

Some teachers just don't understand how to differentiate for more able pupils. It's a sad fact. There's a thread going on on TES Primary about it now. If you've got a teacher who can't deal with some children being out in front they might have some odd policies and rules about how all children need to do the same work.