YR Reading skills

[catkind]

Was wondering if you guys can help me - I don't want to be a pushy parent, but am wondering whether to ask ds's teacher whether it might be time to move him up a reading level.

He knows all the sounds in the current level. He's sight reading about half the words in the books and sounding out the rest with no difficulty. Sometimes a sentence is slower to decode and then he'll go back at the end and say it with inflection. How fluent would they normally be at a level before they move up? What sort of skills are the teachers looking at beyond knowing the sounds and being able to decode?

He likes letters and asks how to write things, so he knows a lot of sounds beyond the current level, but isn't as fluent with them as they're not coming up in his reading books. So I'm wondering if he would progress better with a new level. But I'm new to all this and don't really know how these things work! Are levels mostly about the sounds they know, or is it more about the length of the stories and things?

Any advice much appreciated.

What level is he on? There is no harm in asking the teacher. A lot of classes may not have a lot of time to read individually with children so he may have had a bit of a spurt and they haven't noticed yet. It may be that s/he wants to see a bit more understanding of what he's reading before he goes up a level so you could make your reading time with him more about 'what does X think about this in the story' or 'how does Y feel' to extend his comprehension skills a bit. If he is reading all the words fairly confidently (with a bit of self-correction) then it absolutely wouldn't be unreasonable to think he might need something a bit harder.

I think it depends what books the school are using whether there is any real correlation with sounds. Personally I haven't noticed a pattern at all in the Biff, Chip and Kipper ones. In phonics schemes it would be different.

I would write comments such as 'read easily/fluently/confidently' 'good expression' etc. and see what happens over the next week or so.

Hi - retired TA here, over twenty years in primary schools.

Schools I've worked in were pretty flexible on moving children up a level or two, and as a TA I would tell the teacher if I thought a child needed to move (up, or down). Do you know if he is on a 'scheme' and are all the words 'decode-able' in books he is getting? That is excellent if he goes back and says the sentence with more expression. So many children, in the early stages, read like robots, and I would sometimes mimic that effect so they might realize it didn't sound too good. We used to tell children to "say it like talking".

A Reception class I spent some time in as a voluntary helper, children gave the 'impression' of reading, but in fact had done the book so many times they knew it off by heart, and would say text from pages when they weren't even looking at the correct page!

Do you test him to see if he really UNDERSTANDS what he is reading? When children are decoding and reading very slowly, the meaning can get lost. Ask him questions about the content, what might happen next, what other outcome might have been possible, what would HE have done in that situation, etc? (Many early books might be so simple that none of those questions would be relevant anyway).

Is there a TA or other helper in his class? Does he have a 'reading diary' where you can comment on his reading at home? Quite often in classes the teacher doesn't get to read individually with children very often, though they may well do group or shared reading.

Does he have a go at writing words himself? A small 'white board' or lots of paper at home is good so he can try 'emergent writing' for himself. Don't give too much help, but see what he can manage for himself. 'Having a go' is more important than the end result at this stage. Or writing with a finger on a thin layer of sand or flour on a large, shallow tray is good for letter formation.

If his teacher is friendly towards parents, there is no reason why you shouldn't enquire about how it all works! Some schools have parent 'workshops' to explain subject to parents.

And don't neglect Numeracy; count things with him, look at how numbers are used - in measuring, weighing, clocks etc.

If I were you I would go to the library and grab some phonics reading books that are similar to the ones he already has, and then some that have some new sounds in. Then you can try them out at home. Generally I'd say it's best if they almost don't need to sound out at all on those easy books before they move up though- shows that they've got it sussed and leaves brain space for the new words.

DD is similar in that she finds the school books quite straightforward but I'm happy with her on that level for now as she is reading with confidence and expression and sounding out the occasional word. I have been to the library though!!! And she's on book 7 of 10 of that level so I'm thinking she'll get onto the next level soon enough.

Our library doesn't seem to have much at the right level unfortunately. We've got a few phonics books at home, a different scheme to school but he can certainly read ones with a bigger range of sounds.
It does make sense though what you say about being able to read one level without the sounding out. It's got to be good for his confidence that reading is easy at the moment, and that's not to be knocked at the beginning of school. I don't know how many books school have at this level - we must have had about 20 already and no signs of running out!
Thanks for your help :)

Oops sorry, for some reason only saw the last post there, that reply was to freetrait.

Ferguson, some great info there, thanks.

Yeah, writing is hard for him still. He can spell out words phonically but struggles with actually writing letters. They're doing cursive letters which doesn't help. Though he says he loves them :) We're trying to encourage him to do as much as he wants, I'll try the tray idea I'm sure he'll love that!
Yes, we have a reading diary and comment on all the books he's read. His teacher has commented once on reading with him, I don't know who else is or how often. They do have a TA so maybe she does, she doesn't write in the book.
He definitely does memorise books once he's read them about twice (as does his little sister!), so we're getting school to swap books frequently.

Huitre, periwinkle, he's on level 1 of ORT tho we haven't had much biff and chip etc, more factual books and songbirds and other stories. At that level it's hard to tell by questions if he's understood what he's read, it's all in the pictures anyway.

Thanks all.

& no danger of maths getting neglected, we have a PhD and two MAs in it between us

I asked about my DS going up a level because he is finding the books easy and the teacher said they only give out books with the sounds they have done at school, which is fair enough really, make sure he does it properly. He knows lots of other sounds (alphablocks!) so we get books out of the library to do those. You could order some in from another library if yours doesn't have the right ones?

Reading owls online will give you online biff books to read.

Nothing wrong with asking the teacher to check wether he is ready for a new level.

Also our library will order in books from other libraries - just talk to the librarians. Ds enjoys the project X books too - maybe see if they are on the library catalogue. I will sometimes try him on the next level at home before talking with school about going up as I want him to be confident rather than go up and fall back down again. Charity shops, particularly in naice areas often have cheap reading books around.

I found our library selection rubbish so we bought the songbirds phonics ourselves, with 2 kids and then a young cousin I decided they would be worth the money to be able to have extra practice.

I think a lot of schools take it very slowly until they have introduced 44 sounds (or whatever number it is - think it was about Feb half term last year for DD1's class when they checked they knew all of them) and then children often make very rapid progress.

DD2 is moving up through the boxes (they have 3 levels per level if that makes sense so they have divided each level up into sublevels) but she was blending before starting school. I think the majority of the others in the class are on 1, perhaps a few on 2 and she is on 3 now. I think her teachers are very good at telling when she is ready to move up and I think she will sit where she is now for a while whilst she consolidates what she has learned already.