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!!

How trivial a one or two level rise might be also depends on the length of time that the school keep the children reading the books. A couple of weeks here and there probably make no difference. But months and months on the wrong level are probably brain burners.

MrsCastle we took the decision not to adopt guided reading (when the first literacy strategy was introduced) and to continue with individual reading and using quality whole class books in all year groups. We don't use book bands and I allocate books according to my knowledge of the child's learning needs.

What if the child's learning needs are just more and better books?

Our KS1 pupils are taking home Dahl and Monpurgo and Simons and Rowlings and Strong and Wilson and Symes and Said and Black and Riodan etc as a matter of course

What about the KS1 pupils which aren't yours?

That's up to individual schools

Or not, as the case may be.

But instead their parents and the dedication of their local librarians and, if they're lucky, a supply of good bookshops. And we wonder why studies so often point out that parenting has the greatest affects on levels of education.

Every time such a study is printed people read it on the BBC news website as though it was actually news!

I actually think it is up to parents to provide wider reading outside of school columngollum there seems to have been a shift in thinking in recent years where more and more of the parent's role is seems as being the responsibility of the school ... I wonder how long before children are just handed over at birth

I agree, and I don't know where it's coming from. I don't think it's just school either, after Baby P there seems to have been more of a drive to round children up and herd them into institutions. (Mind you, history shows such periodical urges.) Somewhere a philosophy is emerging that the state is better at doing things than some individuals are, hence absorbing children at four, (not five as the education act requires). Perhaps, soon, three, then maybe two.

But, back to reading, yes, indeed. Parents should just get on with it and many of them do.

"I actually think it is up to parents to provide wider reading outside of school"

Absolutely. It IS the school's role to teach a child to read, and to develop their reading skills within the context of the English curriculum. (I know there are multiple threads on here that indicate that not all schools are doing very well at the 'teaching children to read' bit, and I should make it clear that I DON'T think a school should be expecting parents to 'cover up' those weaknesses in their teaching).

However, wider readuing outside school should be the responsibility of parents UNLESS there are cases - e.g. illiterate parents - where the school needs to help to fill the gaps because parents / carers simply can't.

So, what role does the school play if the child can already read before reaching Reception and her/his textual analysis skills are sharpened outside school on a regular basis?

The school's role is to develop higher order reading skills - ie teaching.

Beyond textual analysis, what are higher order reading skills?

Second page of this:

www.teachfind.com/national-strategies/assessing-pupils-progress-app-assessment-guidelines probably summarises it as well as anything.

Of course, there is a lot of crossover between reading and writing as well - virtually every time we set off to write, we start off with reading, whether it be fables to write fables, dragon strories to write about dragons etc etc - and those 'reading as a writer' skills aren't necessarily included in the APP reading grid, but as I say it's perhaps a useful starting point summaery of the type of skills I would expect 'in school reading' to be teaching.

Note that the grid goes up to level 8 - high achieving mid-secondary school pupil - so 'teaching reading' definitely isn't finished early ion primary!

It's also worth pointing out, perhaps, that each level expects the demonstration of those skills in the context of a suitable level book - so the level 7 objectives refer explicitly to texts such as Lord of the Flies or Macbeth in the original.

Textual analysis (analysing a text, ie finding out how it is composed, what the motives are for writing it, how it can be modified etc)

Is there anything in what the teacher does (beyond teaching of how to read/decode) which is not covered by the label "textual analysis"?

Rather than a blow by blow account of how the teacher actually does it.

Yes, I think it's fair that there should be a set text to analyse rather than text in general. But also in exam conditions the pupil won't be sure what the comprehension text is going to be. I know some people like to predict what it is most likely to be!

Well, I could just call the whole lot 'reading', because the grids I linked to are what I mean by 'reading' in a school context (not a 'recreational' home context.

However I thought it might be useful to see a more detailed breakdown of what comes under thiose broad headngs (whether we choose 'reading' or 'textual analysis' as that heading) and examples of what it looks like a each level, to indicate where a school might be taking a 'fluent decoder and literal comprehender at their current reading level' next.

I didn't mean set texts. What I meant was that to be e.g. Level 5 or level 7 or whatever, a student NOT ONLY needs to be able to have those skills, but also be able to apply them to books - any books - of appropriate complexity and depth.

That is where e.g. level 6 readers at Year 6 may come unstuck - they may have many of the 'skills' in 'tick box' terms, but the texts which are appropriate for level 6 are of an emotional range and complexity that are simply beyond those of even an able 10-11 year old.

Much of what we do is not recreational. I'll certainly look at the grids. But I'm fairly familiar with textual analysis as opposed to reading. Textual analysis is the process of making separate formal observations about the text, (which reading isn't).

(Level 6 being above average for a 13/14 year old - so what level 6 is asking for is for Level 6 skills to be applied to texts appropriate to able 13/14 year olds or perhaps average 15 or so year olds - teenagers with sigmnificantly greater emotional rane and extent of life experience to 10/11 year olds)

The grids simply break down those 'formal observations' into different categories e.g. retrieve information [literal comprehension]; deduce /infer / interpret information; structure of the text; use of language; author's pupose and viewpoint; social / cultural; / historical tradition and context

It's not possible to discount technique and practise at the higher levels. Obviously it's too early to have the discussion now, but theoretically, textual analysis remains the same regardless of the age of the child. Of course, if the child is asked to use personal experience as a guide and does not have that experience the analysis is going to go wrong. But I can't recall such an exam question off hand.

as on the Level 6 reading thread - children are learning about author purpose and voice, identify and discuss features and structure of the text, talk about effects of different words and phrases and the aithor's choices, can refer to the text to support own views and opinions, can explain motives and actions relating them to own experiences and other texts, can recognise devices used by the author and explain the purpose ... etc etc

I agree, btw, that colloquially and in common usage 'reading' does not include the above. In current educational use, it does (we call it guided reading, for example, not guided textual analysis, despite the fact that the latter is probably much closer to what we are actually doing!). Which is why, as I said long ago in this thread, it is part of a teacher's job to explain the different meanings of the word 'reading' to parents when differences of interpretation occur.