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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

When to move up a book band

10 replies

Wornout8 · 02/05/2017 21:06

What level of accuracy would you expect to see to enable a child to move up to the next book band? Thanks

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Iamcheeseman · 02/05/2017 21:13

How old is the child?
They would need to understand what they are reading and answer questions about the text as well as be able to read it once you get past just basic level words.

grasspigeons · 02/05/2017 21:16

About 95% coupled with good comprehension. It's good to ask them to re tell the story and see if they picked up key points and vocabulary, ask why they thought X y z happened, ask a detail like how many or what colour something was etc.

nuttyknitter · 02/05/2017 21:16

I'd leave it to the judgement of the teacher.

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 02/05/2017 21:21

I have to admit I normally ask when DS is having no issues with the words on a reread and can answer questions on the book.

mrz · 02/05/2017 21:25

100% accuracy

Original poster

Wornout8 · 02/05/2017 21:49

I think I'm going to have a word with the teacher, he reads with 95 to 100% accuracy, nearer 100 and is able to discuss the story, predict and answer questions asked.

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KittyConCarne · 02/05/2017 21:53

I think progressing to the next book band involves several things:

Accuracy on pronounciation of phonetically-sounded-out words.
Comprehension of those phonetically sounded words.
Comprehension/ understanding of the overall story.
Being able to "sight-read" the majority of the text (not having to think/ sound them out in head etc/ just literally recognise the word to the point of reading without breaking it down into phonics).
Being able to tackle the longer paragraphs/ stories without feeling overwhelmed/ tired out/ bored by the length of the book.

DD1 (6) has just moved to White band (ORT), and although she can sight-read 80%/ phonetically decode the other 20%, the length of the books are tiring for her, and although she has full comprehension of individual sentences/ paragraphs, the overall understanding of the story is lower as it is a tiring task for her to reach the end.

Once she can tackle White band books with pure sight-reading, and easily have the stamina to confidently/ comfortably read the book in one sitting, then she will be ready to move to the next colour band.

Mehfruittea · 02/05/2017 22:21

DS has been ready to move up a book band since returning after Christmas. He's on Yellow in Reception. He generally has 1 or 2 words per book that he can't sight read, and will sound out. Comprehension is fine, he can re-tell etc. He gets excited about the funny bits and follows it all well.

I know there are 3 other kids on Yellow in his class, his teacher said they will all move up to Blue together by the end of this term.

I know he is being held back so that they can work as a group. I'm ok with this. At least I know he is getting a thorough grounding in the phonic sounds at this level. If he were bored, I would be concerned, but he's not. It's not a race to get to the highest colour the quickest I keep telling myself so I am trusting the teacher on this one.

catkind · 02/05/2017 22:48

Beyond the first levels I'd be expecting a degree of fluency and expression, and only needing to sound out the occasional word. I'm not sure you can state a % - if there are hundreds of words on a page, stopping for 1 in 100 would not be great. If there are only 100 in a book it's probably fine. Some kind of comprehension in the sense of understanding, but I don't agree with the holding them back till they tick some very specific textual analysis or inference boxes, as those can just as well be worked on with the higher level books.

100% accuracy seems a bit ambitious - there'll always be the odd name or obscure word they've not heard before so need to decode and some of those will come out plausible but wrong.

If you're worried about school levels then you could ask the teacher politely to check their level. Or just do your own thing at home - we've had to give up on school books at various points for various reasons, including too easy, too hard, not enough of them to be useful, child refused to change them as they found them dull.

jamdonut · 03/05/2017 07:22

They need to be reading with fluency , some expression, and understanding of vocabulary. I agree inference can be worked on, but there needs to be some understanding of what has been read.

Don't just assume because they've decoded or sight read a word that they know what it means. Ask them every couple of pages if there are any words they are not sure about then talk about it. The children in the class I work in are used to asking what words mean if they are unsure. You would be surprised at their misconceptions. Words that we , as adults, think are easy or stand to reason may not to a child.

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