Reading level in Reception

[Minki]

DS2 (born end of March) is in Reception and on ORT pink level 1 and songbirds. He's starting to blend and seems to be making progress. However, a friend of mine whose son is Reception at a different school said that he was massively behind as he has only just got to level 3!!! I think I am right in thinking that level 1 is fine for Reception so don't really get why the other school (which is a normal state school) would say it's behind. DS1 was on level 1 then 2 in Reception, levels 2-5 in year 1, and 6-8 so far in year 2, which I thought was bang on. Could they be on a different reading scheme?

The obsession with reading levels on MN is bizarre.

Our school has all kinds of books all mixed in together from all different schemes. I haven't a clue what colour or level DD is on.

The teachers went through all the books from all the schemes and mixed them all together and split them into 9 boxes. After that they go to the primary scheme which again is all kinds of books mixed into different boxes (which mean nothing and do not correlate to any scheme that a parent could identify)

You may as well judge who can run better or draw a person or pick their nose. Its nonsense!

I don't get all these conversations with other parents about reading schemes. If another parent asked me about what book DD was reading i'd wet myself laughing and tell them to get a life outside of some arbitrary made up colour scheme.

And no my kids aren't behind, 3 DC in school and 2 of them were free readers before YR2. The other is in reception and currently on the hedgehog box, do I win?

It does seem to depend on the school's approach. In my daughter's school they were allowed to pick and choose from a range of books for their reading books in reception. Next nearest school was very rigid and children were only allowed books with pictures and no words so that they could learn about seeing the story before they were able to look at words.

I am a volunteer reader at the school and the children's reading comes on in fits and starts. Try not to worry about what level any one else's child is on. It's competitive parenting and at the end of the day it's not something you can do for your child it's something they do for themselves. Our job as parents is to encourage not become anxious.

At my daughters school they have to read each and every book in the level before being moved up, even if they are easily reading them. So it takes a long time to be moved up a level because books aren't changed daily and as such the children seem to be far behind the majority of MN! But we read at home, and ultimately it all works out doesn't it, it's not a race.