DD reading books off own back, Spiderwick, lemoney skinicket, dick king...what reading level should she be...

[rainraingoAWAYNEVERCOMEBACK]

I know its not comparable, teachers have reasons for keeping school levels, low and so on, I was just asking out of sheer interest, if anyone elses child was picking up books because they have got into reading...and what their corresponding ORT book was. My DD is year one, level 6.

Purely out of interest, I used to get worked up about ORT levels but not now.

Elibean - you are a mad person on the internet, because you are not answering the OP's question. She doesn't want to accept anyone's opinion on what might be good books to read, or anyone's opinion on her dd's apparently pretty dire school.

All she wants to know is what ORT level your dd was on when she read Lemony Snicket. She doesn't actually want to do anything constructive with this information, either, because she doesn't want to talk to the school, despite the fact it is failing her child and boring the pants off her with level 6 ORT books. (Or maybe it's just the OP that finds them boring, I'm not sure on that one.)

Oh no, sorry, my mistake, Elibean. Even though you are making the same points that I have, that's OK.

Rabbit I think your very wrong there. I have thanked and got some good tips from other people on this thread.

Just notyou

Its such a shame. Its non of your business what or why I am asking things on here.

Its such a shame that a resource such as MN gets a few posters who get a bee in their bonnet and insist on taking over and de railing someones thread.

I recognise your posting style and I am wondering if this is your form.

but at least you have now, understood that I am not too bothered about the ort reading levels in class...took you a while rabbit but now of course your angst, isn't that I am secretly worried about ort reading, but now your upset that I am not upset that the school is failing my child.

strange.

Most of your posts have been i dont understand why your posting.

Maddness.

I haven't said anything that other posters haven't also said to you. You are not looking for advice. You are the expert on your daughter. You don't need school, ORT or anything else.

Really, this gets stranger and stranger, where have other posters repeatedly said, they don't know why I am posting...

Yes compared to you, and most random people on the internet yes, I am the expert on my DD.

Of course we need the school, what we dont need is more long ORT books.

Perhaps this is the issue, maybe you really like them and get great enjoyment from them this is why you have taken such personal issue with my dis regard for them. You think I must need ORT.

You will be pleased to read that this is my last post, rainrain. Not understanding why you are posting is not all I have said in my posts.

I have also said, as others have implied, that if you are interested enough in ORT levels to think level 6 is the wrong level for your dd and you are having your time wasted having them sent home, that you should do something about it. If you couldn't bear longer books of the same type to be sent home from school, then you should go into school and explain that you do not wish to continue reading ORT books with your daughter at home and will no longer be doing so. As I have also said in a previous post, you really would not be the first parent in the world to have done that. You can, of course, record in her reading diary what other books she is reading at home and what you have talked about together on them, so that the school can see that you are working with her on her reading and comprehension and that you are enjoying reading with her at home, which is what they really want to see. That way, the school can still do ORT books in school with her if they want, but you don't have to waste your time with them at home and everyone will be happy. The books you read with your dd at home, after all, whether ORT or not, cannot be used by the school to measure her progress - your role is to make reading fun and encourage her to do lots of it, which you are clearly fulfilling without the need for ORT. Just don't keep quietly whingeing about the boring books the school is sending home and hoping they won't put her up a level because they will then be both boring and long - take the bit in your teeth and have another go at talking to the school, instead of posting questions on a forum that make no difference to your experience or that of your dd.

Our school only has books to stage 14 ORT and I would say Lemony Snicket/Spiderwick and Dick King Smith (eg the hodgeheg etc) needs a higher level of comprehension and maturity, and a higher reading ability, to understand that the ORT st14.

Most children reach the end of the reading scheme at around age 7 Y2/3 the odd few do so before this. Reading level for st 14 is a National Curriculum level 3.

Blimey - hardly dare to post on this thread but I will do only to back up what others have said. If you are asking what ORT level DS1 was on when he read lemony snickett the answer is that he was free reading from year 1 and was allowed to read any book he wanted but he has only just in year four (age 9) read any lemony snickett because the subject matter is not appropriate for a younger child. We actually have the whole set on audio cd together with the whole set of books but after book two I stopped playing them in the car because they clearly were not appropriate for DS2 who is six. They are great and I enjoyed listening to the others on my own but they are too dark, grusome and quite psychologically scary for six year olds.

So having backed up others in that my response to you is that you won't get an answer that makes any sense since the vast majority of people wouldn't let their DCs read them even if they were physically able to read them until their DC was quite a lot older.

Thanks Little, in fact quite a few posters have said their dc have read LS.

She has been reading them out to me and I to her and have not been alerted to anything scary..yet.

I wish I had never mentioned LS and I had never heard of them until searching MN for appropriate books to get for her and I saw them all for 50p each in a charity shop and grabbed them.

I also mentioned spiderwick and dick king, I could have mentioned any other books she was reading....

I'm ducking out now, pretty much got a rough idea of what I wanted to know from most posters!

I am sorry Rabbit...how will you fill your time when not hogging my thread?

co

that's interesting...I never knew some schools stop at level 14. I had no idea how many levels there are.

After stage 14, children move to free readers where books are just grouped generally into similar levels and children pick the ones they fancy. The first free readers are generally easy chapter books such as Anne Fine, Dick King Smith, etc. Children are also encouraged to read their own choice of books from home or library.

Thanks co, that's interesting! That is food for thought....

I wonder when they come off the schemes is their reading still monitered...

If you want the school to move her onto more appropriate books, you need to talk to them. The more advanced Biff and Chip books are actually quite good, with interesting historical backgrounds. So she could be reading them at school so the teacher can "level" her, but her own books at home.

But this can only happen if you talk to the teacher!

My DD2 is 5 and also in Year 1. She is gobbling up the Faraway Tree books, having done millions of fairy books and Holly Webb/ Animal Ark/ Dick King-Smith animal books and the tamer Roald Dahls (Esio Trot, The Minpins, The Giraffe..., Enormous Crocodile etc - started George's Marvellous Medicine and didn't like it). School have her on Stage 8, but purely as a teaching tool - doing things like prediction, inference, spelling, rhyming and punctuation work. I expect these are the type of things your DD is doing at school too. It means we can get the school books done very quickly, and she can read whatever she wants afterwards. She is still very immature, and throws massive tantrums if she doesn't get two long stretches of 'Reading Time' (as she calls it) every day. And when her sister annoys her. And when she doesn't get her own way. Sigh.

dd is level7
she doesnt do much free reading but dks, animal ark, rainbow fairies etc would be fine
ls not at all fine. not the individual words but the content
the nine year old free reading older brother would be ok with ls
so somewhere between 7 and 14!

waffle This is what I suspected. Its used for punctuation and so on .....

Once children come off the scheme they keep a reading diary which is marked by the teacher, who ensures the books they are reading are about the right level. Reading in school is taught through levelled guided reading books which are designed to teach a range of skills and genres.

So very childish to have a pathetic swipe at someone whose last post wasn't remotely rude or unconstructive. Enough to take someone out of dignified retirement - you silly, bad tempered girl.

Well I was forced into early retirement by some Japanese Knotwood strangling my thread to death.
I thought it gone and raised my head above the parapet, but sadly its there there.

DD is 6 and "free reading" at school (well the books she brings home).

In guided reading (at school) she reads stage 7 and at parents eve the teacher said its to push her understanding of why certain words are chosen by the author ie how a mood/atmosphere is created, she is pushed in thinking of alternative words for things, punctuation etc.

I am really bemused by the way this thread has developed.

Firstly Rain, well done to you & your DD - she already has a love of reading and isn't that the best thing ever

I disagree that most schools schemes stop at level 14, I think most stop at 11, which is lime, and for most schools after this the children are free readers, choosing from the library. Lime is supposedly NC level 3c, although that is of course debatable.

DDs school goes beyond lime, she is level 12 and having glanced at the first chapter of LS she could indeed read it. However there are a number of words that I'm fairly sure she couldn't define:

Participate
Unintelligible
Retained
Resourceful
Devices
Emerging
Absently
Previous (she might be able to define this)

That's just under 1 a page, and earlier on you mentioned your DD only needed help with a word every couple of pages. My DD is 5 so I can see it's quite possible for a child of 6 who is not bothered by scary, spooky & macarbe things to enjoy reading LS. I doubt my DD will want to read LS until about 9 or 10 as she is the total opposite of your DD. I don't know how complex the plots become so can't comment regarding that but the first chapter, which tends to give an idea , seemed straightforward enough. As a counter example I looked at the first chapter of 5 Children & It hoping it could be bedtime story fodder (me reading) but not yet, the prose is just too complex and I think DD would lose interest (whilst Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and The Wonderful Wizzard of Oz went down a storm).

Now something I really don't understand is that you say you don't want her to move up as she'll have to read longer books which will cut into her own book reading time. I don't understand because she's going to have to read these longer books sometime, if not now, then when, she's only going to gain in competence and surely the scheme books will appeal to her even less as time goes on. For your DDs sake I would go in and talk to the school to get her to free reading as soon as possible because otherwise you are only delaying the inevitable.

Equally you could take Rabbit's advice and just not read the school books!

I would, at the very least, get specific info from the school about what comprehension they want her to work on so that, whatever you decide about what she reads, you can write in her reading record how she is progressing against those comprehension goals and show that you are supporting the school too.

If she doesn't like answering your questions then you could try a comprehension workbook to support her in developing the higher level skills, especially given that the scheme books don't give much opportunity to do so until about level 8 or 9.

Oh dear, rainrain, so many people giving the same advice as me. It doesn't bear thinking about, does it? How dare everyone strangle your thread with unhelpful advice that you reject out of hand. After all, they must all also be in the wrong, if I am so incredibly unhelpful to you.

ps it's Japanese Knotweed.

Our school have books right up to stage 16, and despite DS1 being a 'free reader' from early on, he still had to 'study' them in school - which is why I believe there is a difference between reading for enjoyment versus reading for 'teaching literacy skills'.

Rain Rain - if you haven't disappeared the passage I posted earlier was a level 15 book (I was really responding to a PP who asked why can a child not just 'practice comprehension' from any stage book that they can physically decode). But I'm glad it was helpful for you too - I have no idea about the books you have posted about and how they would fit wth the ORT reading scheme in terms of other the words used, or the comprehension level, as none of my boys have read any of those series. I would imagine that they are way over level 6 books though simply in terms of their length. if nothing else.

Our school tend to have written in the children's reading diaries what their current target is - whether that is recognising and using full stops properly, or more expression in their reading etc. There is a difference skill between reading in your head and reading out loud - (As i realised with DS1 when he started mainly reading in his head and not out loud to me every day - his expression etc dropped significantly in his out loud reading) and it could be that your DD is not reading out loud well, or that the teacher is trying to teach a specific skill, or equally just hasn't assessed your daughter's level correctly - especially if her reading level has suddenly blossomed. If you feel you can't talk to the teacher, and your daughter doesn't know, it may be worth writing a note in the diary asking what target she is currently working on, along with also making a note of the other books she has read from non-school sources - our school often tell us to get more books from the library and please not to just stick to the school ones.