Is a slow down in progress normal or should I be concerned?

[DebbieFiderer]

DD1 is in year 2 and has been an able reader pretty much since the beginning of reception (couldn't read when she started but caught on really well and finished reception on orange level). However her reading was just assessed yesterday for the first time since before Easter (which I'm not happy about in itself), and she has only moved up 1 level (silver to white, I'm not sure how that relates to other reading schemes, the school use a variety of books and label them themselves).

The TA who assessed her said she needs to work on being able to answer comprehension questions fully and use more expression when she reads, which is fair enough, but I am a bit concerned that she has apparently only progressed one level in 6 months.

Is it normal for progress to slow like this after a quick start or should I be concerned that there is an issue with teaching?

Year 2 seems very young to be so concerned.

Is she progressing in another area? I found with my dss they sometimes slowed down in one area when concentrating more on another.

DS2 whizzed through the levels to white where he was for ages. It took him a while to gain the comprehension skills he needed for that sort of level book.

I'm not overly concerned, just mildly worried, as the school has been criticised by Ofsted for not stretching bright pupils enough (needs improvement), also we have parents evening in a few weeks and I wanted to get an idea of whether it was something I should raise with the teacher then.

I'm not sure about making progress in another area, she had possibly been learning some new concepts in maths, which she feels is hard for her (although she is good, just lacks confidence), maybe she has been concentrating on that. Haven't noticed any leaps forward though.

Thanks LittleMissGreen, sounds like it might be the same thing. Any tips for helping with comprehension?

They do slow down as they move up the levels. At the early stages it's all about decoding, at the higher stages the focus moves to comprehension - which does require more of a level of maturity and experience.

Do you read with her a lot at home?

Glad you're not overly concerned you have no need to be.

Former KS1 teacher here - it's perfectly normal to have peaks and troughs in progress, and ime this kind of 'slow down' is extremely common when children are able readers, who have found decoding relatively easy.

In Year 2 they'll be putting more emphasis on so-called 'higher order' skills, especially since your DD is already decoding fluently. This is where things other than raw reading ability - maturity, empathy etc - begin to come into play. Your DD will need to be able to explain exactly what has happened in a given part of the story; how the characters are feeling; why they may have acted as they did; what might happen next etc - in other words, comprehension skills. Then there are things like reading with expression (changing voice according to punctuation, dialogue etc), skimming and scanning for information and so on.

When you're reading with your DD at home, I'd suggest letting her read through the book once at her own pace, then reread with pauses to discuss some of the questions above (don't overdo it, though, or she'll switch off!). For expression, I used to teach my class to vary their voices for question and exclamation marks and anything inside speech marks. We practised using a special 'question voice' that went up at the end. Oh, and pausing for full stops, commas etc. Lots of varied outside reading (non-scheme books) will obviously help too.

I wouldn't worry too much; it sounds like your DD is doing really well.

It might be similar to in our school, in R and Yr1 they are all about getting them actually reading, they don't do any work on inference or 'proper' comprehension (by that I mean answering proper questions about it rather than just, what has happened, what did you enjoy, what do you think might happen next) even if they were reading chapter books. They then went into Yr2 and were expected to either demonstrate these skills or start being taught them so I suspect some will have gone down a bit to accommodate that.

she is probably more than capable of it but just doesn't know what they are asking for because she hasn't actually done it before at school.

Thanks all, some useful thoughts and advice. We do read together at home (Enid Blyton etc), and she reads other books independently too, but I have noticed that she is not reading by choice as much as she used to.

Even reading magazines/comics helps.

Do you go to the library much? DS2 wasn't so keen to read as DS1 (still isn't) but he did read more in a library. Plus they have special events on there too. I really miss library times with my little ones, they're 14 and 16 now. Both taller than me.

I have a dsgs but he's only 7 months. Never to early to take them to the library though is it?

Enjoy these years they're so precious. Sounds like you're a great mum

Bitesize for literacy, in case you haven't seen it?

she might just be having a phase where she would prefer to do something else. I think we all do it don't we, read avidly for a bit and then not read for ages but of course we notice it with children. Perhaps let her read some easier books at home for a bit of light relief? it could just be she is suffering with being a bit tired out from different work at school and the thought of reading something in the evening which is suitably challenging is just too much.

Taking it in turns to read a page or each taking a character, so you treat the book like a play, are great for expression.

Comprehension comes with maturity and lots (and lots and lots*) of talking.

*DD1 is dyslexic, she didn't learn to read properly until she was 11, she still got L5 on the reading test and an A in the reading section of GCSE.

She simply did the whole thing backwards. Being hopeless at decoding, she developed brilliant comprehension skills, so she could still understand the text with the odd word miss read or missed out completely.)