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!!

DDs school does the same. It's so frustrating. She's bored of the books on her level and complains when I try and get her to read to me as they're "too easy". Every time I think she's finished the set she comes home with a different book on the same level with six more listed on the back of it! I'm going to bring it up at the end of term parent's evening.

CG, agree that the 'headings' of the types of analysis possible remain the same. That's why the grid is a grid, not simply a ladder - the headings remain the same. However, the level and depth and specifics of what is required are HUGELY different at different levels.

Not many primary children can call upon own experience to discuss social and cultural contexts and how this may change over time or the use of irony or identify all the language features of a text or ...

Exactly. At lower levels, much of what is needed is in the text. At the higher levels, a reader brings themselves to the text - their own experiences, their previous reading, their knowledge of the world, their wider education in tersm of writing and grammar and history and sociology and politics etc.

So ione of Year 5s- might say 'The author has placed the subordinate clause in that complex sentence in this particular plac3 because...' or 'The effect of putting in an embedded clause is' or 'I think the author could have used an embedded clause, but used brackets instead because ' - that is grammar vocabulary that is now in ther general usage and so can now be applied to texts. 2 or 3 years ago, that same reader wouldn't have had that vocabulary at their fingertips to use in the analysis.

It's not about 'exam questions', either - the APP grid is used for everyday, formative assessment of pupils' levels. Not all of the assessment can usefully be represented in a written test, which is why we only use written tests as a 'back up' to proper continuous assessment.

Children can be educated (in any setting) to deal with much of [the factual details of] what has been listed above. But artificially creating personal experience and resulting maturity I can't see happening. The younger child either has it or she hasn't.

Diamond, certainly my experience 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.

teacher that was also my own experience with DD, however if it were everyone's experience then this thread, along with many others, wouldn't exist on MN!

I couldn't access the APP grids. It had something to do with the webpage not rendering on my screen, text was clearly displayed in places it should not have been.

I'll have a look through psbd's L6 thread. It's too early for me to be interested in the topics, but out of general interest.