Book band question

[catkind]

I have a feeling this is one of those annoying questions all parents of new school kids end up asking in one form or another... Anyway, here's mine.

Is anyone familiar with these books and what reading level would you say they are?

Happy Families (Mrs Vole the Vet)
Green Bananas (Dinosaur Disasters)
Roar the Little Dinosaur
Urgency Emergency (The Melting Snowman)

These are DS school reading books for the past few weeks, he's supposed to be on yellow level. They seem a massive step up from the scheme books at this level, both in terms of phonics and story length. Is this really still yellow level? I'm wary of asking the teacher about reading again as I feel I may be turning into one of Those parents.

Yellow level in my DC school is stage 3.

The Happy Families books are stage 8/9 (I forget which ) which is purple/gold.

Sorry, forgot to say I don't know about green bananas books but blue bananas are stage 7. Green bananas are easier than blue.

I put moany messages in the reading record if I think the books are too hard for DS (they usually are!). And then I go to public library to get something that's easy enough. We go to the library a lot so not difficult. Often they can then find the easier versions of books on the same level for DS.

could it be someone has mixed up gold and yellow?

Yes - that Happy Families book was definitely stage 8 (purple band) when DD read it. Some of the books in the series were gold band (stage 9) too. Would say there has been a mix up at school!

mind you would have hoped the school would have noticed. they are quite obviously different books in each level.

I suppose the main thing is can he read them?

Yes I mean he's on level 3 of ORT/songbirds, and whatever school deem to be equivalent in other schemes. I asked if it was time to move up a level, teacher said no but she'd direct him to the more challenging level 3 books. So I feel I would look a bit of an idiot if I then come back saying they're too hard.

I'm kind of reassured that at least the Happy Families book is officially harder. I think the others were harder too, but then I'm not so sure what they're looking for when levelling. The Green bananas website just says NC level 1 which could be level 3. We do write in DS reading diary about what he reads and that he was finding them hard, no-one said "oops that was a mistake". And he has read them to someone at school too, tho it's never quite clear who, could just be a parent volunteer.

DS can mostly read them, he's happy enough. He does choose this kind of book from the library and read it with us, so it's not completely ridiculous for him. We help with the phonics he doesn't know, he's picked up a lot more phonics this way than he's officially been taught. Following other threads on here I'm concerned he's also picking up too much whole word learning. And a bad habit of guessing rather than decoding.

At this point I'm wondering whether to just quietly intersperse some phonics scheme books at an easier level. We have some songbirds, and there's oxford owls. See if either the school books settle down or DS catches up to them. And then it'll be summer holidays and he'd be reading random stuff from the library anyway.

this link gives a library's overview of which books it thinks equate to school reading bands.

to be honest if he is managing with them and they are the sort of thing he would choose to read then I would keep going with them and as you say add in some other phonics ones at home. if you have songbirds and work through one a day he will soon settle into these ones more confidently.

If he's managing them he may just have made a leap with his reading and I'd stick with it. They're likely to be a lot more fun to read than the level 3 ORT Songbirds ones too.

That's really helpful LittleMissGreen, I recognise a few of those series from our library.

nonick, pointythings - expect you're right, best to leave well alone. Some songbirds will help fill in the phonics gaps. All a bit confusing really...

... and this week's offering is stage 9 according to t'interwebs. Still stage 3 according to school.
DS is loving the interesting books and the challenge. He's getting very good at guessing difficult words. Just not so sure of the effect on his reading.
I think I'll "forget" to get his books changed this weekend so we can do something more decodable.

hmm it does sound a bit odd as the school are way out if they are still claiming it is 3.

mind we had a band 8 book masquerading as a 6 this week, not a surprise as other DC went through this last year but they are just cases where they have banded them by ORT stage not by the book band which is (particularly for fireflies non fiction ones) sometimes different. at least they are never (IME) more than 3 levels out and she can read level 9/10 anyway so it isn't actually a problem as such.

It would be easier to understand further up the scheme I think - at stage 3 in the scheme they haven't even covered half the phonics spellings.

I'm divided between being curious as to what's going on and wanting to leave well alone as DS is happy. Mis-levelled books in the book boxes? DS going to wrong book box (but then how have they not noticed over several weeks)? Deliberately challenging him but wanting him to be officially on stage 3 for some schooly reason I don't get?

I'm not saying he's brilliant by the way. I could well believe he doesn't have all the skills they'd want at stage 3 in terms of fluency or comprehension, but then surely they'd give him easy books to work on these things not hard ones?

I think I would be too nosy to be able to just let it slide past. but then I like organising things and lists and all that kind of stuff so would be itching to get my hands on the book boxes and sort them out!

That's what I'm battling with nonick. Kind of want to save the bothering the teacher moments for things that are actually causing problems and we can't do something about at home.

yes I know what you mean.

do you know any of the TAs? or any parent helpers? a careful 'general query of puzzlement' could provide an answer without having to actually ask the teacher anything at all.

catkind, go with your instincts, I should think you know better than them the level he is happy at. Sounds like he's somewhere between 3 and 9....3 is pretty easy, 9 is heading towards fluent, but not there yet. I think they have this in between stage where all sorts of book are appropriate with different terms of support. DD is reading, or having a go at all sorts now. She brings home ORT Stage 6 from school, but this is pretty easy for her and it's more fun, challenging and probably better for her to try all sorts of things with us at home. Yes, they do need to keep building their phonics and not guess at words, but tbh I tend to help DD out with this, and not spending ages with her on a new word, just get her to try it a bit, show the phonic sounds if appropriate and then just read it to her. Sometimes a really hard book can be much more engaging than bloomin' Magic Key (although DD loves them).

I think my instinct is to do a mix. As you say with different levels of support. We'll let DS carry on with the school books as he does enjoy them, but we're throwing in some simpler songbirds too.

nonick you're quite right, TA would be a great person to ask. I don't usually see her but I think DH does so perhaps he can ask after half term.

If not, I'm intrigued as to what happens when they do move him "up" to stage 4 - will they go back to giving scheme books, and what will DS make of it?

do let us know what happens when he goes 'up'. I am quite intrigued too! Now I am on DD2 I am counting down (to myself) to the end of the scheme books for ever :o)

An update - happily unexciting. Moved up to blue level 4 following holidays, he's happy he's gone "up", and doesn't seem to mind they're easy. (If he's even noticed - maybe he just thinks he's got better at reading...)
The challenge stuff doesn't seem to have done any harm, he's reading level 4 with much more expression and no guessing, yay. So I think we can put the songbirds away for summer holiday reading.

well thats great he is happy enough, the most important bit. very bizarre they were using such hard books on level 3 though, it must have been intentional or they would have noticed surely.