ORT Jackdaw book question

[Loobylou3]

Hi,
Can someone help me as the book is now in DD's room and she is asleep.
Can anyone shed some light on either the ORT level or book band colour of the Jackdaw book called 'William and the spell' or more recently, from what I have seen on Internet may be called 'wizard magic'.
It has come home labelled purple, is this correct?

Thanks

Anyone?

Jackdaws is fairly old. It is a 'branch' of the Oxford Reading Tree along with the 'Robins'. Both Jackdaws and Robins were for children whose reading developed faster than the main trunk. I haven't used or seen them for at least a decade now!

I'm not sure of the book band level, sorry.

Thanks for the reply. I am struggling to find the level on internet. I can see them in a set but it just says levels 8-11 without saying which book is which.

There are only 2 books per level. It's the 'fast track'. The main trunk originally had 6 books per level - it has many, many more now.

I think there are also more sentences per page and more pages than the main trunk.

It existed before the 'Treetops' which is now often used for accelerated readers.

My dd has only just gone onto purple but this book seems way too much for her. I just wanted to try to find out more about what level it might be because there seemed far more text in it.
Her school often label books incorrectly and I wanted to see if this particular book was actually purple or not.
Thanks

I have the ORT list. if it is Wizard Magic then it is book band 10/white but was stage 8 or 9 I believe when it was written originally so schools like yours and ours have it at a lower level then it should be.

Jackdaws are hard work. very long and wordy. Our school send home lots of Robins and Jackdaws books. Can't wait for DD2 to be off the reading scheme stuff.

Will try and find the link to the list for you - I have it printed out.

fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/oxed/primary/literacy/ort/bookband_listing2013.pdf?region=international should work. Robins and Jackdaws are on page 10

DS1 was given a Robins book and a Jackdaws book at the same reading level as he is currently on, for us to read with him over half term. He was on level seven. He found them really hard. They have more sentences per age than the other ORT books, and more words per sentence. He is now on level eight and he finds the normal level eight books nowhere near as hard as those Robins and Jackdaws books. I think they are far more challenging.

I think in a moment of sheer boredom and fed upness I counted (roughly) how many words were in a jackdaws book compared to a normal one (yes ok I know I know but really I was at the end of my tether with the stupid things and was trying to get school to realise they really WEREN'T the same level and they should reorder them based on the ORT list) and if I remember right there were 3 times the number of words.

Thanks so much for this.

It confirms what I thought. It wasn't so much she was unable to read it, although there were some new words for her, it was the sheer amount of words/lines on each page. The story seemed more complex too.

I will explain to her in the morning too, as I think she felt a bit overwhelmed by it, she is only just 5 so I think is doing really well with her reading and this book just felt one step too far! Will mention it on Monday to her teacher, who is lovely, and ask her to help her choose more appropriate books in that level.

yes the words aren't really any different but they are more wordy, I think the sentence structure seems more complex in some of them and the stories are more complex (boring!)

see if you can steer her towards the non fiction ones (fireflies) as mine really liked/like them and also the glowworms poetry ones (much much shorter books - 18 pages I think - once DD1 discovered that she worked her way through as many as possible because they were quick to read but they both enjoyed the poetry).

Perhaps if they don't reach those levels until they are older then they aren't so out of place with the others on that level I don't know but mine both did them in reception too and I think there are easier to follow chapter books to be honest.

tell her I have 2 little girls who found them very heavy going even though they were also excellent readers - will help if she knows she isn't alone even if she doesn't know them.

will do. Thanks again