National Reading Average - is it very low?

[Crouchendmumoftwo]

My son is in the top reading group in his year one class - he is on level 6 blue book band. I looked this up and it says its is a level for year 2. I'm not sure if this is the case. To be honest he is aged 6 and he isn't a free reader and his reading is quite slow and laboured. We think it should be a lot better for his age and he should be reading more confidently . We are thinking the national average must be very low, the school must have very low expectations or not be pushing the kids much. He is at a good state school but I guess the question I'm asking if the state school national average is very low as well as their expectations.

We get him to read with us just once a week and wonder if we should be doing more - pushing him harder. I know there is no rush. We have parents evening this week so I can find out more.

and they did understand it on an age appropriate level LaQueenOfTheDamned and when they revisit it at 10 or 11 or 12 they will understand it at another level just as when your daughter revisits it at 11 or 12 or as an adult she will understand it at another level.

The playfield was levelled by using the same test rather than different tests as the PISA does. In addition some of the high achieving PISA countries admitted they did not include SEN pupils in their returns

I agree with that, column. We let DS(5) "free read" from his bookshelf at home for the sake of everyone's sanity. Usborne non-fiction is his go-to.

Why wouldn't you let your child read what they want at home ... school books are for teaching but they shouldn't be all a child reads

is it all part of the mystical quality endowed to reading scheme books by some people

mrz as in we don't make him read the school books at all most days. He is bewildered by their crapness, and I'm a firm believer that a love of reading will get him further than a rigid adherence to artificial bookbands.

I can see why reading schemes exist, of course, like different colour runs at a ski resort or different spice levels at a curry house. But that's an artificial educational tool rather than a life skill.

Oooh I like your reading scheme books mrz! We're at the other end, reception and just begining to use phonetically plausible books. I can't wait until she can read something a bit more interesting.

"And, that the really aspirational, gold standard Reading Level was a Level 5."

They have L6 now and not many children pass i.e. just ~2000 this year. Given how much drilling/coaching/tutoring goes on outside school I imagine that really does represent some kind of age-based natural limit.

Then again forensic literary analysis skills measured by the tests aren't the same thing as reading and understanding a book.

LaQueenOfTheDamned don't you discover new things every time you revisit old favourites and develop new understanding ...

Of course a 6/7 year old hasn't the same level of maturity or had the same experiences as a child twice their age, so what they bring to the book is age appropriate and no less worthy.
HoratiaDrelincourt that's exactly it ...reading scheme books are teaching tools not great literacy works.

Having black, red, blue, green and baby ski slopes is all well and good. But restricting people to the baby slopes until they are 18 in Europe and 21 in America and then mandating three years minimum as a restriction to each colour before progressing onto the next is the equivalent of some school's behaviour with reading schemes.

In that case you would have youth championship skiers still being taught to snowplough on the baby slopes for several years after winning their medal.

And as far as I can see only primary school teachers can't see what's wrong with such a setup.

DD (5) has point blank refused to read her school book for the last couple of weeks. So we just read one of our own books instead.

To be fair to her teacher, this weeks school book is actually very good but DD is very near the end of a book she has been reading for a while and she wanted to find out what happens at the end

As Littlemissgreen said, my DD read Harry Potter a couple of months ago (her choice I would rather she waited a bit). She understood it at a very basic level, found some parts v funny (Dudley being described as a "pig in a wig") but only knew what was going on in a age appropriate way. She still enjoyed it though

Well I think mrz & LaQueen have beautifully illustrated the 'we're talking at cross purposes' point.

mrz means by having her Y2's read The Hobbit - that they would understand it as a 5/6 year old would and can read (decode) the majority (?all) words.

an example passage from the hobbit here: www.education.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/5664/band3_hobbit.pdf

What I remain deeply confused by is that DD2's Y2 class (possibly as late Y2) would mostly have been able to tackle that passage. But DD1's class probably would have been late Y3/ early Y4.

Why the discrepancy?

50% of pupils in KS2 have siblings like we do in DD2's Y2 class. So sure a large part can be more clued up parents and an established reading at home routine (which many eventually adopt after they realise books just won't be coming home regularly).

What I remain deeply astounded by as a parent given I'm endlessly told how professional teachers are is why there is no agreed target that say really all Y2 pupils should be able to read this and if not, support will be provided to help support reading skills.

DD2 got help eventually - in Y4. Why wait so long is another question - but there you go...

There were agreed targets in the form of NC levels and statutory amounts of progress at various stages. OK, not targets on the level of this book title and that book title, but close enough. The government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to scrap this rather useful notion in favour of an every school can make it up as it goes along policy. (Which I'm sure will have the stated aim of being easier for parents to understand, especially when moving from one home-brewed grading system to another school's home-brewed grading system.) I see no problems there at all.

Every time I re read a book which isn't often I always find new things out I had not noticed before.

I agree Coloumn about loosing the will to live over the book schemes.

I hate the name Biff?! Does anyone actually know a Biff? Why Biff? Why Chip?

I have developed a huge library for DC at home, I can't stop myself buying books.

DD hates reading scheme books with a passion and won't read them although luckily has no gone beyond Biff et al.

DS (yr4) adored Biff books and refused to read anything else

IMO reading scheme books have their place but should not be the only/main books a child reads.

There is an explanation about the character names stemming from the author's actual children, as infants, being unable to pronounce the name Christopher, or somesuch. But who cares? Unspeakable rubbish is unspeakable rubbish regardless of how the so-called-"author"'s children spoke as infants.

What I remain deeply astounded by as a parent given I'm endlessly told how professional teachers are is why there is no agreed target that say really all Y2 pupils should be able to read this and if not, support will be provided to help support reading skills.

1. A number of teachers still believe that reading is a developmental skill and that children who don't pick it up straight away will 'get it' sooner or later. (and, to be fair, some do)

2. Children who struggle to read at what might be considered an 'age appropriate' level are often regarded as either cognitively deficient or 'dyslexic' (fault with child, not with teaching)

3. Teachers are not always well enough trained to teach good, sysyematic structured phonics and many have a tendency to mix phonics with 'other strategies' , so weakening the effect of the phonics instruction. This works for some children but not for others, who are then labelled as at 2)

4. You will never get all children reading at exactly the same 'level' at a certain age, particularly if they are checked with a 'standarised' test.* There will always be outliers, though, if properly taught there would be far fewer underachievers than there are now.

5. Identifying children needing extra support with foundational skills is precisely what the much maligned Phonics Check was set up for.
   I really don't think that you have to worry about children not getting support with comprehension skills; teachers are very hot on comprehension, just lukewarm with phonics

*Roughly (there may be someone who can explain it better than I can..): standardised tests are compiled by testing a large sample of children of the same age and scaling it according to how many of the sample got items correct. There will be a point at which the maximum no. of chn. got the maximum no. of items correct and that will be considered as the 'age level' score. Tests can be re-standardised up or down according to the over all ability of the cohort tested. So a reading age of 8 after a re-standardisation may represent a different level of achievement from one obtained before re-standardisation.

Whereas something like the Phonics Check works on what chn. are expected to have learned by a certain time and the knowledge required to achieve the 'standard' remains the same from year to year.

What did people born in the 70's read, was it john and jane ladybird books?

Thanks for the link PastSellByDate having read that I think DS2 might enjoy the hobbit (I remember being uninterested as a child and hadn't tried it since).
So after a bit of digging, as I have little knowledge of the Australian system, they use the literacy test you gave at the equivalent of the end of our year2-end our yr3 level.
I think DS2 would be able to answer most of the questions, although would struggle with the one to do with the phrase "The Bagginses
have lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind,".

As to reading scheme books, I think they have their place, but they certainly shouldn't be the only reading material a child is exposed to. I think that there is too much hang up by parents about what level their child is on. I appreciate that sometimes teachers may appear to get this wrong, but it is quite possible there is an underlying factor - DS1 would happily read Harry Potter aged 5, but his teacher only realised he could read at the end of reception as he was to scared to read to her before that.

DS1 would happily read Harry Potter aged 5, but his teacher only realised he could read at the end of reception as he was to scared to read to her before that

But if you told the teacher that he could, wouldn't you expect that teacher to give him something more like that level to try in class...

In his case - no - he spent his entire first two years at school hidden under desk! (He has Autism - at that point undiagnosed). Took a move of schools and a new teacher to entice him out and start learning properly, so although I told his previous reception teacher that he could read it made no difference in school as he couldn't/wouldn't demonstrate it in any way.

oh well then!

DD would be able to read the Hobbit with ease (she's 7), but there is no way she would actually read it because it would absolutely terrify the life out of her. Maybe she'd understand it a bit too well?!

Finding appropriate reading matter is actually quite difficult as although she has the ability to read most things she comes across, she can even find books aimed at youngish children pretty terrifying because she tends to think too much about what is going on and how she'd feel about it.

Hi MaizieD

You've raised some great points:

1) A number of teachers still believe that reading is a developmental skill and that children who don't pick it up straight away will 'get it' sooner or later. (and, to be fair, some do)

Absolutely agree, and indeed ultimately that is the case for DD1. Being foreign and coming from a system where school age is a year later - I have to admit that I wasn't overly concerned at first - but year on year the gap between DD1 and higher achieving pupils in KS1 grew - they were clearly reading well and DD1 was struggling to sound out 'ST-A-ND' - it was pretty obvious there was a problem and that had me concerned.

I think the HT telling me 'what I needed to understand was DD1 was just a bit dim' just killed any respect for our school & its staff I may have had. DD1 was struggling and reasonably asking for help/ suggestions was met with extreme hostility. In the end my brother (who teaches in the US) and friends from ballet (who teach here) provided ideas/ resources/ support & encouragement to me to just do our own thing at home. Help didn't come from the school until after I formally complained to OFSTED during an inspection, with documentation.

2) Children who struggle to read at what might be considered an 'age appropriate' level are often regarded as either cognitively deficient or 'dyslexic' (fault with child, not with teaching)

As I said above DD1 was written off as 'dim' by school. She's now been selected to sit L6 in English. I suspect work with me, my brother (during summer vacations) and English teacher from a local senior school (who worked with DD & friends in prep for 11+) and lots of reading (made possible by parental support - school rarely sends books home) made the difference. I don't think DD1 was 'dim' - I think she was slow to get it and needed help, inventive ideas to make decoding words understandable and practice. Attending a school where books rarely are sent home after Y1 was a huge hindrance to this.

What I remain deeply concerned about is that for years most of the class was doing way better than DD1 and now they are doing obviously worse - why was that allowed to happen?

3) Teachers are not always well enough trained to teach good, sysyematic structured phonics and many have a tendency to mix phonics with 'other strategies' , so weakening the effect of the phonics instruction. This works for some children but not for others, who are then labelled as at 2)

Again if teachers are 'professional' then basically this is no excuse. You wouldn't accept a doctor saying s/he wasn't well enough trained to cope with your excema or broken leg. Where are management? What is the Head of English doing in terms of oversight on intervention with struggling readers? There is 1 TA per class and a huge library of books - but the books stay on the shelves and mainly parent-volunteers (largely untrained) seem to be teaching struggling pupils how to read (well reading once a week with them).

4) You will never get all children reading at exactly the same 'level' at a certain age, particularly if they are checked with a 'standarised' test. There will always be outliers, though, if properly taught there would be far fewer underachievers than there are now.

Fair enough - and hey I wasn't asking for that. I'm asking for an organised system that has a threshold - let's say all Y2 can read that bit of hobbit text I posted. If someone can't - that flags up a problem and help is provided fairly quickly thereafter. Waiting until Y4 (basically after I documented situation with OFSTED during inspection) given all signals were present that there were serious problems with literacy skills for DD1 and as parents we were requesting help at parent/ teacher meetings seems a pretty slow response at best.

5) Identifying children needing extra support with foundational skills is precisely what the much maligned Phonics Check was set up for.
I really don't think that you have to worry about children not getting support with comprehension skills; teachers are very hot on comprehension, just lukewarm with phonics

Phonics check came in after DD1 left Y1 - so I fear she suffered from bad timing yet again.

But I hasten to add Phonics checks were imposed externally on teachers by government - and with opposition (at least here on MN by teachers). So my impression is that nationally (well England & Wales) the government didn't think teachers were monitoring progress against agreed targets well nor were they agreeing that by a certain point if skills weren't there help needed to be provided.

I'm glad - if the introduction of the Phonics Test means that things like my DD1s progress through KS1 & KS2 lower - struggling to read with little or no help from the school are no longer possible. Fantastic! I just remain amazed that any 'professional' could behave that way toward a child desperate to learn and willing to try hard (as she has done for us at home and with parent volunteers at the school, who have confirmed DD1 works hard).