What sort of reading level would you expect at the end of Reception?

[RobotElephant]

DD does ORT and I've not paid too much attention to which reading band she is on, as she seems to be progressing well. Another parent asked me what band she was reading and I had no idea

What level ORT would be normal for the end of reception?

I'm fairly sure that some staff member must be saying something to them because although they see children picking books out of various boxes at changeover time it doesn't automatically follow that there's anything significant about which child picks which book out of which box (I don't think.) They're just books. I don't think a child can understand that it's better to pick a book out of this box than that one unless someone tells her that that's the case.

I think my daughter started getting the better notion when she had a book taken away from her on the grounds that it was too easy for her and she got given a different one. I think before that she just thought they were all books.

The teachers are likely to say you will be moving on to x colour books soon if you keep reading well etc so I think the book band levels are fairly obvious to children especially if they are moving through them fairly quickly.

I was commenting more on children understanding the ability groups also.

I can't speak about ability groups because I don't know if our school uses them yet. (I don't think it does.)

If the teachers deliberately don't say things like you'll be moving on to x level soon if you keep this up, but instead say well done. And then just change the book without making a fuss about it then there's no reason why the child should feel any different about the new book. My suspicion is that it's adults making a fuss about the little coloured spots on the dust-jackets that alerts the children to the fact that there's something funny going on there.

You are probably right, I think they are trying to be encouraging though.

I am not sure it actually matters as most of the DCs seem keen to work hard to move up levels and so far I haven't heard of any boasting/nastiness/jealousy (YET)