What book band is this book?

[SuperScribbler]

DS has recently started at a new school (in Y2) and has been given a Kingfisher Young Knowledge book entitled Oceans and Seas. To satisfy my nosiness does anyone know what book band this is approximately?

does it not have any clues on it anywhere?

all I can see on the internet is that it is a series of books, American, for ages Kg to grade 3 - ages 5-8 it says. sorry, that doesn't help much

None that I can see. Just a sticker with the school name on it. Nothing else at all and nothing in the blurb either.

Yes that's all I could find online. It has some quite hard words (coelacanth!) but sentence structure is straightforward and not very dense.

ooh now that IS an everyday word - coelacanth!

I think most of the equivalent type of books we had from Oxford Reading Tree Fireflies (is that the non fiction lot - can't remember now) were generally around book band 7-10, more at the 9/10 level I think because they did include odd words as part of the nature of the subject matter. The sentences were straight forward, the grammar normal etc but the unusual words seemed to up it on the levels.

There is a book banding book which was my bible when teaching. I bought loads of lovely non-fiction, poetry and fiction books and banded them using the big book. Then I added them to the scheme and we had a much more interesting and diverse set of books for the children. The best thing was that parents and children were less aware of levels and reading became more for pleasure and interest.
It sounds like your school have done a similar thing. I would just be pleased that you have more than ORT ( although these books still have their place) and that your child is learning other things as well as reading.

Hi SuperScribbler:

My advice with unlabelled books (and if curious) is simply type in reading age of Book Title... on search engine.

For your book: Kingfisher Young Knowledge the publisher has this:

us.macmillan.com/kingfisheryoungknowledgewhalesanddolphins/CarolineHarris

And like Perwinkle007 said - it's meant for ages 5 - 8 grades K - 3 (in the buy the book section)

Now in the US K or Kindergarten starts the year you turn 6
1st grade = UK Y2 - the year you turn 7
2nd grade = UK Y3 - the year you turn 8
3rd grade = UK Y4 - the year you turn 9

If your son is happily reading away with this book - it strikes me that he is soundly reading at his chronological age, if not a bit better (which is the idea).

So all good.

Sometimes non fiction books with really difficult words, can have a glossary or pronunciation guide at the back. As long as the bulk of the text is appropriate to his level, the occasional difficult word doesn't really have to be said 'correctly'; just as an adult might skip over bizarre foreign names, it doesn't affect the sense of the text.

Having had a look at the text via Amazon, it looks similar to non-fiction books my Y2 DD brings home, she's about white/lime level I think.

Just to update. The latest books DS has brought home have been:
The Gruesome Truth About the Romans.
Jack Stalwart Mission to Find Max: Egypt.
The Danger Zone Avoid Climbing Mount Everest.

Still not sure what level these are but they are so much better than the dull reading scheme books at his old school where he was on Level 13/14!

it sounds like his new school have a slightly 'better' approach to books beyond lime level than his old one.

I personally don't like kids having to take home reading scheme books after they have finished lime - fine to use them for guided reading or to address a specific issue if there is one but otherwise they should be reading proper books, exploring fiction, non-fiction and poetry etc, not restricted to the styles of reading schemes (which are normally also very short books so don't encourage stamina)

hopefully these ones are appealing to him more.

School reading seems to have stopped for the minute here! DS brought home a Mr Majeika about four weeks ago that he ignored, and I ignored, then lost, so he brought home an identical school one (!) and also ignored. I made a half hearted attempt at suggesting he read it, which he ignored. He is reading Horrible Science and Horrible History and becoming very knowledgeable about both. At some stage I will read a story book to him for a bit of balance. And perhaps we will send Mr M back and have something else hanging around that may or may not be read .