Pink book band

[Kanga59]

my son is 4.5 and in reception at a private school. He has been on pink band books since the summer term of nursery. We didn't read a lot over the summer holidays.

phonics wise he knows up to cks, igh, ng, sh, th, that sort of thing.

how long did your children spend on pink? he read his book last might very well, reading words by sight and not sounding them out

over the Xmas hols he read 8 x ref ort booms and 4 x yellow from a set that I purchased a while ago from book people. so I know he can cope with books other than pink.

what are teachers waiting to see before moving them on. and actually, does it really matter.

[Cressandra]

I'm not sure exactly what extra vocab and comprehension your DS will get from a red banded book that he won't get from the next band (yellow?) though Kanga?

Ours get a banded book plus a free choice book as often as they want changing.

[fredfredgeorgejnrsnr]

The comprehension thing has always struck me as odd, DD just brought home a story about 3 goats, there was a troll. There's not a whole lot to comprehend in the story, it's a simple story of Boy meets Troll, Boy complains to his Mum about Troll, Mum gets Dad to attack the Troll so they can steal his plums. And the vocabulary in these books is simple, whilst it could be tricky to read when they don't know it, but they're certainly not words kids don't know!

When do books actually get complicated enough that understanding them is actually difficult?

[mrz]

It doesn't have to be complicated to work on higher skills. Predicting, inferring why the author uses certain words or fonts. Does the story remind the child if other books they know?

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

You were fobbed off. Although she's done a good job of it.

And I say that as someone who was privately educated and who has 5 out of 7 nieces and nephews currently being privately educated. Just in case my private school credentials are in any way important.

[spanieleyes]

You seem to have beef mrz and feenie. I assume your children are at state school and therefore whatever the teachers reply was, you'd have picked a hole in it. Scurry back to your holes.

Do you realise how incredibly rude that sounds?

( and yes, you have been fobbed off!)

[OneofTHOSEWomen]

My kids don't go to private school. I do think about it and don't assume " things will be taken care of" although have been pleasantly surprised with my DCs rapid progress through the reading bands showing we (teachers, parents and pupil) are doing something right.

The feedback given on these boards by experienced teachers has been hugely valuable. I, for one, am very grateful.

[fredfredgeorgejnrsnr]

Okay mrz Next time we'll discuss the choice of font, I imagine it's down to some sensible choices over legibility and readability, possibly with some good solid research to back it up. Although I know the research on serif vs sans-serif is equivocal in adults, but I note these books tend to be sans-serif, I think we'll have to do some searching.

Our current book (Elvis) doesn't even mention the typeface used, so even that is going to be an effort, but still a good opportunity for research.

Thanks!

[cheapandcheerful]

This:
but by reading wider and each band for a bit longer, you'll get better vocabulary and comprehension. It also helps with writing confidence as they are practicing simpler words that they also see in books.

And whatever happened to 'reading for enjoyment'? Why the desperation to move onwards and upwards when there are so many books to enjoy? I understand the need to teach but it's not all about the levels.

[user789653241]

fred, I read choice of font as in using italics or bold rather than actual name of font at this early stage... Maybe I'm wrong.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

But that's the bit that's total rubbish. It's good sounding rubbish, but still rubbish.

Any child that is having their vocabulary stretched by a pink level book has issues that will probably need a SALT assessment. And the level appropriate comprehension skills that are usually quoted for level are things like pointing to the cover or the title or predicting what the book might be about from the picture on the front. All of which can be done on any book, so why not give a book that will allow him to develop his reading skills if that's the issue he's having.

For most children reading will have very little influence on children's ability to write words. Arguably the best way to do that is carefully planned sentence writing/dictation activities that get the children to actually write those words.

[spanieleyes]

I think mrz meant whether different font sizes are used in the book, perhaps to show raised voices or similar, rather than the specific font style chosen ( although I could be wrong!)

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Italics, bold, font size, capitals.

Sometimes there are changes of font within the text that might be used for effect e.g. a narrow font or a big bold font.

It won't be possible to discuss in ever book, but it is still in some books at a lower level. It's a case of discussing it as you come across it rather than being able to discuss it in every book.

[MrsKCastle]

Whatever happened to reading for enjoyment? Why the desperation to move onwards and upwards when there are so many books to enjoy?

How much 'enjoyment' is it really possible to get from pink level books? There's some great reading schemes out there, I know- I'm a big fan of Songbirds for instance- but they really are necessarily quite limited. "Yes, the cat wants to be top, oh, it keeps getting beaten. Look at that, isn't it funny? Now please can we read something with a little more to it?"

I would hope that all children, and certainly those in private school, are being exposed to a whole world of exciting literature that they can discuss and enjoy. The levelled reading schemes are excellent for helping with decoding, but children who progress quickly through the levels will not be missing out as the scheme should only ever be a part of their 'reading' experience.

[mrz]

No Irvine you are correct ... Italics , bold CAPTALS, lower case, large ir small are all techniques used by authors for effect and it's always worth talking about what the author is trying to say by those choices.

[user789653241]

Thank you mrz. Glad to know we were doing something right. We used to talk about why the words are getting bigger and bigger, why the sentence is written in spiral and fading, why the word was written in slanting way(italics), etc., etc. Those early years books were real fun to read compared to bland chapter book's writings.

[mrz]

I think it's easy to miss out the important steps in the rush through the book bands Irvine. All the talk will have contributed to your child's success as a reader (and will impact on success as writer) wish more people spent a few extra minutes analysing and exploring books.

[Feenie]

I assume your children are at state school and therefore whatever the teachers reply was, you'd have picked a hole in it. Scurry back to your holes.

Are you for real? You're like some ludicrous caricature.

[fredfredgeorgejnrsnr]

What, you mean we wasted 3 hours of homework today on trying to figure out which typeface was used in the book? Oh no!

Sorry for my little (deliberate) confusion, although I don't actually think any of our reading books have so far had much in the way of italic / bold etc.

Today though, DD just decided to read her reading book by herself on the stairs, so now I don't even know how it went. I'll just make something up for the reading book record...

[mrz]

Oh dear! Spending three hours working out the font would at least meant you'd shared the book and talked about it.

[fredfredgeorgejnrsnr]

Rather than start a new thread...

So what's the difference between red and yellow, or indeed any levels really.

DD said she'd moved up, we'd had a couple of extra books the last couple of times which were yellow anyway I think, but the yellow books appears pretty much identical to the red. It's maybe a little bit longer, but it's still a very easy few minutes to read it without any help needed other than with the OE sound of "Joe", which she said she'd never learnt at school

Is it just lots of practicing reading, and her very good working memory makes it very easy for her due to the lot of repetition in the books.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Probably not that much between consecutive levels tbh.

If you are talking about repetition in the books, you are probably looking at non-decodables. Pink mostly consists of simple captions or short sentences. From there the sentences get gradually longer, there are more sentences on the page, the books get longer. Obviously as you get more text, it's easier to make the story told with the writing more complicated and provide more opportunities for inference etc. Although that is still possible in earlier levels.

With decodables the same sort of thing happens but you also get a cumulative progression in the letter sound correspondences at each level. So you start of with a few single letter sounds and simple words and progress towards all the spelling alternatives for every sound and multi syllable words.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

off

[mrz]

There are different book banding systems but most commonly used is based on Reading Recovery criteria so doesn't correspond to new decodable reading schemes, although many publishers have used book banding to organise phonic books too
In reality there will be very little difference between the early book bands (possibly longer words or more words per page )

We don't use book banding and our early reading scheme books are organised in teaching order of sounds and there spellings.