Free reading/not following a reading scheme

[LittleMissGreen]

Just curious really, after lots of recent posts, but not wanting to hijack one of them.
If children become free readers early on, or aren't following the school's reading scheme, is there any impetus to make sure that the children read different genres of book - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays etc, or can they literally choose whatever they like from their home/school library.

[mrz]

Reading Recovery (PM benchmark) has 30 levels .www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegrid.org.uk%2Flearning%2Fprimary_strategy%2Finclusion%2Fwave3%2Fdocuments%2Fks_1-2_levels_bk_bnds.doc&ei=yespU4WFAY-JhQfGkoHICw&usg=AFQjCNGZUUWKARNyRaMSGFl4d0_L1sOHIA&sig2=WRVt0GBmw9yEncH7xopLBQ&bvm=bv.62922401,d.ZG4

[mrz]

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegrid.org.uk%2Flearning%2Fprimary_strategy%2Finclusion%2Fwave3%2Fdocuments%2Fks_1-2_levels_bk_bnds.doc&ei=yespU4WFAY-JhQfGkoHICw&usg=AFQjCNGZUUWKARNyRaMSGFl4d0_L1sOHIA&sig2=WRVt0GBmw9yEncH7xopLBQ&bvm=bv.62922401,d.ZG4

[simpson]

Are reading recovery Australian?? DD has had a few of those (quite a few actually) and they were the last school book she had.

[mrz]

they originated in New Zealand simpson

[insanityscatching]

There is no reading scheme in dd's school. Dd learnt to read using the books from the school library which are all banded. Children have free choice from the books in their colour band. I assume that in guided reading they cover different genres so that they have experience of books outside of their preferences.

[simpson]

Thanks mrz

Oh the joy my DC school seem to have invested ££ in reading scheme books (ORT treetops) and DS (yr4) is back on them. DD (yr1) so far seems to have escaped!

[007licencetospill]

Mine just read what ever they liked. There was a limited range at school so I took DS to the city library lots

[pyrrah]

DD's school use mixed methods and no one scheme. Every book DD has is from a different one and the bands are not in order either. One week she'll have a book marked Band 3, the next week it will be a Band 2. The teacher chooses the book based on the content and what DD needs to practice rather than the number the publisher assigned to it. They also use Reading Recovery.

Not following a scheme definitely stops the parents trying to find out what bands others in the class are on and comparing.

One child in DD's Reception class was a free reader when he started school and is on chapter books. I've seen his workbook and he writes full stories and the teachers pick him up on things like punctuation. He's also bilingual. The rest are all still trying to write a full sentence with words spelt phonetically!

Some children are very young when they start reading, others (like my DD) have other priorities in life at 4 (princesses/cars/role-play etc) but once they see that this reading thing could be worthwhile they make fast progress and others struggle for longer. So yes, plenty of children can read books like Horrid Henry before the age when it would be expected.