National moving back down a reading level?

[jmspbro]

DS2 who has just moved into yr2 has come home in tears because he has been moved back a reading level. He says his friends were equally upset because they had been moved as well. No explanation from the school.

A friend with a DD in another school has also suffered the same fate but was told by her school that it was a national toughening up of reading levels?

Can anyone expand on this?

Yes, I can understand some children drifting backwards over the summer hols, but DS2 kept reading over the hols and completed the local library reading challenge, for example.

DS1 was never moved back after the summer hols.

DS2 is now refusing to read the book he has brought home because he has already read it earlier this year.

How can reading be toughened up? They can either read or not, and I follow the 80% known and 20% not known guide for the appropriate level.

Don't think of it as 'suffering the same fate', honestly, it's a nano second in your ds's reading career.

No idea about the national picture, except the phonics screening at the end of Y1 may identify children who aren't as secure in their knowledge of sounds as possibly thought, so may need some time to consolidate.

Refusing to read a book that he's already read is a slightly different issue.

When you say "moved back down a level" do you mean in the school reading scheme?

@mrz
Yes.

In that case there is no national move. I've moved the majority of my class up our scheme as has the Y2 teacher.

There could be several explanations. Most teachers work on a 90% to 10% guide, so if a child is making 2 or more mistakes per 10 words, that could indicate that the text is too difficult, but it is only a guide. Maybe his new class teacher hear him read and thought his current level was a bit hard? What level is he on now? (Either reading scheme name & level, or book band colour) And do you know what national curriculum level he was at the end of Y1?

It certainly isn't anything to do with a national toughening up of reading levels, that hasn't happened. Of course, it could be a simple mistake, so worth checking out with the teacher who I'm sure will fill you in on her reasons.

I don't know what my dd's teacher will do, but I would say my dd's last teacher worked to something like a 95% accuracy. Perhaps it is just different teachers? Although I think it is hard on the kids to go down a level.

Moved back as in gone down a level from turquoise to orange sort of thing? That's not set at a national level surely? I think some teachers like them reading more within their comfort zone and others push them up, or one teacher might have a more exacting requirement for "good enough" comprehension and expression for a given book band. What is the 80/20 thing?

Surely the book bands are just a way of giving them vaguely suitable reading material, they are not a gold standard of rating progress. The teacher will be able to tell him what he needs to work onto go up again.

Book band colours are used indicate national curriculum reading levels, so Purple level for example indicates the child is likely to be reading at a 2C national curriculum level and Turquoise indicates a 1A level (if their comprehension etc is at an equal level). Of course levels are on the way out, so this won't be for long!

The "80/20 thing" is a measure of appropriate text level. If a child is reading 90 to 95% of a text correctly (so roughly making one mistake per 10 words) then that's what is known as instructional level - neither too easy, nor too hard. If a child is reading only 80% of the text correctly (so 2 mistakes in every 10 words) then that could indicate that the text is too hard and likely to be causing the child to lose the flow and meaning of the text they are reading.

The easy way to do it is to get a piece of plain paper and make a tick every time they read a word correctly, and a cross when they make a mistake. Count the total number of words read (e.g 80) and the total number of mistakes made (e.g.8) and you'll be able to work out the ratio by dividing the total number of words by the number of mistakes, which in this case would be 1:10, so spot on.

Does he have a new teacher in Y2? It maybe that the teacher has reassessed the class and doesn't agree that they were on the correct level. I know different teachers can have different views on the reading schemes; at one of my DC schools one teacher was happy to move children up if they could read the books comfortably, another wouldn't move them up until they had read every book in that band even if the children found them too easy and got bored.

Thanks SchoolHead, I knew the levels roughly equated to the 1As etc but I thought the teacher had some flex. DD's Y1 teacher didn't believe in reading schemes, she was big on them reading whatever they wanted and just love books.

80/20 sounds like very hard work! Even one in 10 would challenge DS's flow I think.

Hi, yes the reading expectations over the last little while have been significantly raised. So would have been expected for a year two, is what schools need many reception children to achieve. Try speaking to your child's teacher about helping to improve his confidence.

Hello OP
I don't think it matters at all what level your child is.
As long as they are reading a variety of material, learning new words, what does it matter?
Take them to the library or Waterstones if you can afford it.