reading book question

[BramblyHedge]

When you listen to your child read a banded reading book do you expect your child to be able to read it pretty much perfectly or to struggle with a certain percentage of the words eg. 10%? Obviously comprehension, expression etc are also important. When ds1 was in KS1 I thought he should find some challenge in his books which he did. Ds2 in year 1 brings home books which present no challenge and the school says this is good because it gives him confidence but I still would like some challenge. Just wondering what other parents expect.

I'm sure I've read on here before that a child should be confident with about 90% of the words.
Ds's books really vary, but he's a reluctant though able reader- even books that are easy for him he doesn't want to read!

You need a bit of challenge. However I think you can provide challenge with books from elsewhere - library books, picture books where you can take a turn on each page, chapter books where they can read the odd word, recipes, etc. The reading level is not the be all and end all.

I had this problem after the summer when DS books were presenting no challenge. I sent them back three days in a row saying 'finished, found it very easy, needs more of a challenge' then on the fourth day as they were still not really getting more difficult I wrote explaining he had read a lot over the holiday and really needed a big step up. His teacher sent home a much more difficult book but he rose to the challenge straight away and has been fine. I think easy books can also become too boring.

DD's school don't seem to believe in banded books- or indeed any books matched to ability. (They do have different coloured boxes, but they seem to contain a mismatch of levels).

When I read with her, I do like the books to be challenging but not necessarily in terms of decoding. So she might be able to read the words easily but need to work on comprehension.

Mostly, though, I want her to enjoy the books. So an 'easy' book with a fantastic storyline would be fine IMO, but 'easy' books that are boring - I would be thinking what is the point here?

I've heard the 90% level, but certainly with DS2 he can 'decode' any of his reading books without any issue at all. Occasionally he may struggle with the odd word - his last one was full of French inventors so I had to show him how to pronounce stuff in French for example. He also sounds like he is reading with very good expression.
But, for him, the issue is actually with comprehension - he can read something with great expression so sounds like he knows what he is talking about, but on probing he doesn't understand all the words he is reading. So for him, I don't think I could find a book where he couldn't 'read' at face value 10% of the words.

Thanks. I might have a word with the school then but at least he has lots of opportunities to read book at home/ library

If he reads the books from his current book band fluently, and is therefore experiencing no or little new vocabulary, then what's the point?

There's a free and fairly simple way to check out for yourself roughly which is the right level for him. Go to the Oxford Owl library, they have e-books all the way to stage 16. If he's finding his current band really easy then I'd suggest choosing the band that's 3 levels higher to start with and work your way down if that ones too hard. You only need to read a page or so to see when he hits the point where he's struggling with more than 1 word in 10 (the 90% level) - obviously checking his comprehension along the way and seeing how his fluency is affected.

Of course if your DS's school doesn't use the national book band colours then it can be a bit more tricky, but people here will be happy to tell you the band if you can provide info about a specific book.

I simply can't see the point of DCs reading books at home that are not introducing new vocabulary except for very specific reasons (e.g. a confidence boost after the summer holidays for a child that hasn't read much, comprehension problems or to improve fluency - but final one should only be for a short while, and when fluency improves then it's time to move up a level).

Of course it's just a point of view!

It depends what band it is. If it's an easy to middle band and they can manage it perfectly with full comprehension etc then they should be going up to the next one. If it's a higher level one then it's probably not so much about decoding as about comprehension and higher level skills, inference, etc. I didn't quite get this when DS was in Y1, but after a chat with his teacher it became clearer. You can't just keep getting "harder" books when you are 6. Well you could, but that would miss the point. Hope I'm making sense!

Just read with DD3, aged 5 in year 1, needed help with 2 words in quite a long book, but the de-coding is the easy bit, the trickier part is the expression and inference, which sooo many children struggle with, particularly if parents are trying to push them through the book bands.

It isn't a particularly high band. His expression and comprehension are good. He understands what the punctuation requires of him and emphasises exclamation type phrases such as whee, shh, bang, wow. Anyway his teacher is going to take a look at his band so will see what he says.