Reading book bands & NC levels

[crumpeteater]

I've been told that DS is reading band 30 books, how does that relate to national curriculum levels?

Presumably there's more to assessing his reading level than just 'can he read the words' so what kind of level of understanding would they be looking for? He does ask me what some words mean when he's reading, so he doesn't understand every bit, but he follows the stories well and can certainly recount them and explain what's going on.

He's only just started school, having previously been home educated, so his teacher says she hasn't had time to fully assess his reading (other than to say it's very good!).

that must be reading recovery levels I would assume. will try and find a link to them.

It sounds like a Reading Recovery level

Ah ok, I've never heard of reading recovery levels! I'll see what google will tell me, no wonder I wasn't getting very far before

I don't understand them myself. I can manage book bands but reading recovery is just larger numbers to me

Reading recovery seems to be a program for children who are struggling with reading? DS is definitely not struggling, he's happily reading books like Harry Potter (he's in Yr2). School aren't quite sure what to do with him so I want to be able to help him at home; when the rest of his class have reading time he just sits with his own book (from home) and reads quietly to himself.

I'm not worried about his ability to decode words, just wondering really what level of understanding he's supposed to have, so that his comprehension abilities match his decoding abilities IYSWIM.

well the school quite possibly just have all the books labelled as reading recovery but the staff use them in the same way they would have used book band books? or it could be that they use book bands up to 11 (which is sort of the start of chapter books) and then books beyond that are labelled reading recovery because it is a broader system (? not sure if it is but I get the impression it is)

My daughter is in Yr1 and she takes in her own books to read.

I think what you probably want are the National Curriculum level details which indicate what skills they need to have. I have a link somewhere but might take me a while to find it.

Some schools use PM benchmark books which use reading recovery levels. RR level 30 is roughly a 5C very high for a Y2 child

Maybe that's it periwinkle. I should have just asked the teacher, but I had expected it to be easy to find out what band 30 meant and I've been a bit of a pain since DS started so I thought I'd just look it up myself at home. DD, in the same school, has a colour for her reading band so I was expecting something like that when DS's teacher spoke to me.

If you can link to the NC levels that would be great, thank you.

this shows book bands related to reading recovery up to 24
www.bassingbourn.cambs.sch.uk/bookbanding.pdf

this isn't what I was looking for but might help
www.st-cleres.thurrock.sch.uk/content/uploads/2013/01/k-GUIDED-READING.pdf

Thanks periwinkle those links are great

mrz That level may well be right for the books he reads, but it looks like he really doesn't have the other skills that a child working at level 5 would have for understanding and discussing what they're reading. That's pretty much what I was expecting, I just didn't know how much of a gap there was.

DDs previous school used pm benchmark, there are two PM bands for each coloured book band so DDs current band (white) is PM bench mark levels 23 and 24, therefore band 30 equates to Sapphire (as in Lime 25/26, then Ruby 27/28 and Sapphire 29/30).

This means that band 30 is equivalent to a 4b (I think) - still very high but not requiring the same comprehension expected at 5c.

See this: www.thegrid.org.uk/learning/primary_strategy/inclusion/wave3/documents/ks_1-2_levels_bk_bnds.doc

Also see here www.nelsonthornes.com/shop/nt/reading-intervention

In fact I always thought that the national book band colour scheme came from PM Benchmark - don't really know why though

Thanks thegamesafoot I'm new to all this national curriculum levels and book band business, just trying to get my head around it really so that I can support the DC in school. I need some sort of parents' crash course in eduspeak.

I'm not planning to coach DS up to level 5 in time for his SATs or anything . I just thought when we're talking about what he's reading I could try and point the chat in roughly the right direction so that his understanding is broadened a bit.

Crumpeteater - I completely understand! If you have a child that finds the decoding element relatively easy then it makes sense to focus on all of the higher order comprehension skills which usually take longer to acquire even for advanced readers..

Out of interest how suitable do you find the content of the 30 level books given that they are aimed at much older children?

Crumpeteater - I completely understand! If you have a child that finds the decoding element relatively easy then it makes sense to focus on all of the higher order comprehension skills which usually take longer to acquire even for advanced readers..

Out of interest how suitable do you find the content of the 30 level books given that they are aimed at much older children?

Haha, I thought for a second I had lots of replies!

He doesn't actually have an official reading book from school, his teacher let him choose something from the library when I asked if he could have a book to bring home - he chose The Twits. Previously he'd just been taking in books from home (he's only been in school for a month though). The book band thing came up at parents' evening; I mentioned that he's a bit unhappy not to be in a reading group and the teacher said that he's reading level 30 books and her top set are reading level 15 - so there's nothing he can really join in with apparently. I mumbled agreement and thought I'd better work out what it all meant when I got home.

The books DS is reading at home are probably the sort of thing most parents would be happy to read out loud to a child of his age - Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Willard Price adventures. He's asked for the Narnia books for his birthday (I have no idea where any of these books would fit in with reading schemes). I was the same as a child though, so possibly I have a slightly more relaxed view of what's age appropriate.

Hmmm that's got me thinking because surely a top group in year 2 at PM Benchmark level 15 (which covers bands green and orange) is very low? I'm really confused - sorry! Level 30 sounds right with respect to what your son can read and his teacher may have benchmarked him to know he can read at least at this level (30 is the last PM benchmark level) BUT the level 15 remark seems very odd indeed!

Hi
Just wanted to say that my DS (Y1) is also a level 30 reader based on benchmarking but is national curriculum level 2c. I asked his teacher for advice and she said to ask him about the characters in the book, their feelings and to predict what will happen.

Agree that a top group at green/orange in y2 doesn't sound right at all. According to my DD (y2 and usually reasonably reliable with most info) at least five of her class are "free readers", which in their school seems to be beyond the lime or emerald which comes after white books?

Benchmarking.
We 'benchmark' children and level 30 is Y6 ability - in terms of words. But when benchmarking, it finds the children's instructional text - the level in which they are learning to read. Their retelling and comprehension could be deemed unsatisfactory.
At our school we benchmark to find their instructional level up to the level they are supposed to be at for that year group. At Y2 autumn term it is orange (levels 15/16). I have a number of children (2 in particular) who are reading above this level. We stop at the level where comprehension is deemed to be satisfactory because at this age, they need to focus on retrieval, analysing, inference and deducing skills.
One boy is reading level 30 (Y6) which means he has no difficulty reading and decoding words (free reader0 but his comprehension skills are satisfactory at level 24.