Moving through reading levels

[Sneepy]

I'm curious as to what the current thinking is on moving through reading levels. DD2 is in y1 and her reading is coming along nicely. Her understanding is good as well as her technical. It seems to be the policy is to read every book in every level before moving on to the next--when DD1 was doing the scheme she was moved up as necessary. I just feel we are never going to get to the end if she has to read every book in every level!!

Wow, a lot of good information on this thread! FWIW I'm not fussed about which level DD is on, I just would like her moved on to more challenging books when she's ready, not when she's plodded through every book in the scheme and is thoroughly sick of them!

I just would like her moved on to more challenging books when she's ready, not when she's plodded through every book in the scheme and is thoroughly sick of them!

Well quite!

I'm tempted to start a thread in AIBU:

AIBU to think there are no benefits for children in having a blanket 'you must read every book at each level' policy?

Having done some lurking on AIBU I'm not sure if I'm brave enough though but I would really love to know if any teachers can explain this type of policy, other than it being a benefit to teachers by having everyone appearing to be at roughly the same level ... would that make life a bit easier as a teacher????

why would i want everyone on the same level? Even if they appeared to be, they actually wouldn't be-which would make life harder, not easier!
No reason for such a stupid policy at all!

Imagine how many books you would need at each level to opperate such a pointless policy . Schools should be allocating books with a teaching purpose in mind ... skills to develop or strengthen. Reading scheme books have a different purpose to that of Dahl, Monpurgo, Simon, Rowlings, Riodan etc and both have their place

operate (fat fingers)

"Schools should be allocating books with a teaching purpose in mind ... skills to develop or strengthen."

Absolutely. And teachers should be having that meaningful conversatiomn when a parent feels there is a gap between the 'book band' [I won't use the word 'scheme', because our book bands are a real mix of different schemes, real books etc] and 'reads at home for pleasure' books. There is, certainly when I have those conversations with parents, a reason for the gap - it often comes down to what a parent means by 'reading' [essentially decoding the words] and what a teacher might mean by 'developing a particular reading skill' [e.g. inference] - but I should be able to explain that reason, not simply state that it is how we do it.

However, there are, very rarely, some parents who simply have lost faith / belief in the school / the education system / the teacher, and however lengthy and rational and evidence-based the discussion, will simply not accept any reason for the use of a specific book band level. If that type of communication breakdown occurs, it is really difficult, because both parties are left with a sense of 'grievance' - the teacher that professional, evidence-based judgment is not accepted, the parent that their view has been challenged, as they see it unreasonably. Those are, luckily, rare interactions - I can think of 1 over the last few years - but they are so difficult that they stick in the mind.

How much fun is it to read a book when really you are only decoding it? None, I think!

Therefore if a child is reading a book to themselves for pleasure at home, laughing at the right places and steadily turning the pages, doesn't it mean that they probably aren't just decoding it? Yet when my children were learning to read and the gap would get very wide indeed at times, the teachers would always say that they were teaching to read for meaning whereas the books at home were merely being decoded one word at a time with no comprehension.

I thought, and still think, that the teachers had it wrong.

In the end, it doesn't matter if the teacher thinks your child is a x stage but you know they are two steps further on. Children do very little actual reading at school anyway and eventually the teacher's analysis will catch up. In the meantime, the parents can attend to finding books that develop a love of reading.

" Children do very little actual reading at school" - by this I hope you mean one-to-one with their teacher?

I agree that reading and understanding are words which require defining. But it's not beyond the wit of man to discuss the issues, is it. Nobody needs to replace an adult discussion with a couple of year's supply of crappy non-books!

I'm talking about the amount of reading done in KS1 (hope I'm not talking at cross purposes!). As far as I know, teachers don't do 1-2-1 reading with children these days. School reading is a combination of

• parent helpers
• TA
• guided reading in groups

Parent helpers and TAs note in the books how much they did. Usually a couple of pages/ 5 mins per child. So parents can see for themselves how much time is spent reading from books, apart from guided reading.

Phonics isn't really reading, is it? Its more prep for starting reading.

Sorry dalziel teachers do 1-1 reading with children these days they also hear children reading individually in all kinds of activities across the curriculum.

My dd has a teacher hear her read once a week and a TA twice a week.

Ok.. sorry I was extrapolating what I'd witnessed in just two schools. Obviously even then they will get a child to read out the odd sentence here and there.

I hope DD's teacher hears her read. However, she has only written once in her reading record since September.

Our school used to have lots of 121 but it fizzled out due to helpers dropping out (and I suspect more help going to the ones who need it.) Comments in diary fizzled out, everything fizzled out except the supply of crappy books.

I don't write anything in home reading record books apart from the title of the book I'm sending home.

Absolutely, I'm assuming it's similar at school. I'm not worrying, but if I was less confident, I could think there was a conspiracy. I was a teacher, and I know what goes on. I'm not convinced I'd make the same decisions as DD's teacher, but I know it's early days at school for her and she's happy so I'm happy.

What kind of conspiracy could there be? Well, except on behalf of the publishers!

I think I've found the reason for every book at every level; the scheme goes all the way up to Y6!!

Our 'banded book' scheme goes up to Year 6, but since pretty much every age appropriate - even ambitiously age-apropriate - author is included in the bands, it doesn't restrict access to 'real books' at all, it is just a useful classification scheme.

mrz you do 1-2-1 reading with every child and hear children reading across the curriculum. Sadly, I think your school is the exception rather than the rule. I know children (and by extension, parents) don't always recognise how much reading is going on. But there are still schools where the teachers genuinely don't know how well the children read.

How could a teacher know if a child has taken a significant leap in reading if they only assess the child on the next band or two up?

If a parent's concern is due to a child being able to read one or two levels ahead of their school level then I think it's a relatively trivial issue.

A school that insists that a child reads every book at each band could have children that can read many levels ahead of their school books. In Bornfree's case ORT 6 when her daughter is reading Matilda which may indicate she could comfortably be a free reader if the school stops at band 11 or at band 13, or more, if the school's banding goes onto year 6.

If you test with a ceiling you don't get accurate results.

If that's 2 bands too low well that's not so bad and can serve the purpose of focussing on specific skills if it's by design, if it's 4 or more levels that I think it's a significant problem because the school will not be meeting that child's educational needs. It's not the be all and end all, but it is poor practice.

The impression that I get is that most infants seem to require the crappy books. And the logic seems to be that they don't do the odd "different" child any direct harm. There was an instance (or two) when my daughter was harmed by them and they were then modified by the teacher concerned.

But the all books at all levels philosophy seems to be predicated on a no harm no foul basis.

If harm has been shown to have been done we can always argue about it later...

Diamond, certainly my exoperience with my own children, and with practice in my own school, is that a child can be moved many levels at an assessment. DD certainly skipped 4 at one point, DS as I said above went from 1-7 within his first few weeks at school.

If - worst case scenario, as I usually pick it up from all sorts of other sources - I find in a benchmark test for moving book bands that a child scores very well for the next band up, I always keep going through the levels until they reach their correct next step. Tbh it is much more common that I find a child who can read the next level fluently fails at the higher-level inference, summnarising etc type questions, and may need more than 1 attempt to gain the next level properly.