Frustrated about bookband / SATS year 2

[bonbonours]

So my 6 year old boy, year 2, is an August birthday so the youngest in class. He is excellent at reading, and at home is reading Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis perfectly capably. However, his handwriting is appallingly bad and it takes him a huge amount of effort to write a small number of words. They have been preparing for the year 2 SATs at school and he has done quite badly in the practice papers despite his teacher having him down as being 'expected'. I suspect this is due to two things 1) he is quite immature and loses concentration easily if he is not interested in something, 2) he hates writing and so does the minimum in the tests eg writing one word answers. I have already talked to his teacher about this and we discussed him having a scribe so that he can get his ideas and answers across without having to physically write them.

He has been on the same bookband (Lime) for five months, and the books are really easy for him to read, so I just let him read them to himself in the car on the way home from school and then listen to him read other books at home. However, when I asked if he could move up (they have three further book bands at his school), I was told that his comprehension level is not good enough because he is not passing the year 2 comprehension tests in preparation for the SATS. Also I was told nobody is above Lime and my son told me his teacher said in class the headteacher doesn't want anyone moving above Lime so this seems to be a school policy. (based on what? What is the point of having higher book bands if nobody is allowed to read them?)

It seems to me that it is unfair to judge his reading level on the basis of comprehension papers which he doesn't want to sit (and realistically which I am fundamentally against - 6 year olds shouldn't be sitting exams at all). He is not excelling in all areas, so it would be a great boost to his confidence to allow him to move forward in the area he does excel in.

He does understand everything he reads. His teacher even said that when she talks to him about what he is reading, he shows comprehension. It is only a test situation that he is not 'showing comprehension'. Therefore, as I see it it's the test that is the problem. He has no problem with comprehension and I don't see why they won't let him move forward.

At my ds' school, children are only go up to lime in KS1 as well.
Just let him read whatever he wants. Book bands aren't big deal, imo

For writing, I can understand your frustration. My ds is a painfully slow writer. But unless he has some disability, this will be problem for him in the future. So, we do encourage him to practice writing, and do things to strengthen core muscle.

Is he allowed to have scribe?

My dd is similar she is fantastic at reading, she is on dark blue ( or a colour similar ) which means it's the highest level and she is a free reader, so can bring home any book she wants, but her handwriting seems to have taken a step back, it used to be reasonably neat, but now it's sometimes unreadable, I am annoyed at the SATS she didn't do great on the mock papers but I know she can do it if she is relaxed, the second there is any sort of pressure she just says any answer, especially for maths, the tests start next week and I am not looking forward to it.

If he truly comprehends these Lime level books, including anticipating what might happen next, inferring appropriately from text (and if he expresses this to the teacher), it does indeed sound like he should be on a higher book band, regardless of his issues with writing. However, it seems from reading various threads on MN that it is not uncommon for schools to place artificial ceilings on reading levels.

Does he have a reading record for school? I’d log all of his home reading books in the reading record, including relevant comments. Document his wide and capable reading so there is ample evidence. Write in the reading record that he read the Lime book out loud to you, fluently, in the car, and you discussed it, and it took all of 10 minutes. Etc!

I’d also make sure he reads aloud to you daily (from a variety of sources) so you can keep an eye on whether he’s skipping words, understanding the wider vocabulary, comprehending at an appropriate level etc. Basically, support his developing reading at home, regardless of what the school is doing.

You say he ‘does not want to sit’ comprehension papers and that would be a bit of a concern for me. I hope he is not picking up on your attitude towards SATS and testing in general. Children in school don’t get to pick and choose what they like doing, or to opt out of exams. I would be pretty cross with my daughter if I found out she was offering one-word answers because she wasn’t keen on the subject!

Part of the ability required to move beyond that level is an in depth ability to both explain, under, and predict. They need to be able to this both verbally and in writing. If your child is able verbally but not in writing, then this is a discrepancy which will show up in the test papers.

It's really not something to be worried about. Your child is at expected levels. Which are much higher than last year's expected levels!

Thanks for the replies.

As far as "doesn't want to sit," I had not had any discussion with him about the tests at all, or spoken about my dislike of them, at the point when I was called into school to discuss the fact that he basically refused to sit one of the practice papers. Although I don't really agree with the tests, we did treat this as a discipline issue and tried to put in place a reward/sanction system regarding doing work he has been asked to do at school.

So I truly don't believe it is coming from me at all, it is coming from the fact that he is 6 and a half and doesn't want to sit down and do a 45 minute exam because it doesn't interest him. My husband is very much of the belief that even if we don't like the system, this is the system we have to live with, and we are not teaching our kids it's okay not to do school work if you don't want to. So, yes we have told him that he needs to work hard and try his best at school but I can't physically make him answer questions, especially when he finds it physically and mentally tiring to write.

I don't really care whether he passes his SATS or not, and I know he can read more advanced books at home, and does, all the time. I'm sure he will continue to progress nonetheless as he loves reading and we read together a lot, including talking about what is happening int he book, what might happen, why things happened, what tricky words or phrases mean etc.

So it's not even that I think they are holding him back. I just think he would get a sense of achievement from being moved up, because he has no real awareness how much more advanced his home books are than his school ones, but he does have an awareness of the grading at school, and the fact there are 'harder' books there but they don't think he's good enough to read them.

TBH, I don't think scheme books are much harder even levels go up. Maybe a bit longer.
My ds was lime in reception, and officially stayed on lime level until end of Yr2. He was allowed to read any books he liked.
In yr3, he was officially given ruby(lv16), but hasn't read any scheme books either. He choose what he reads.

Why does he resists to write so much? Does he have any disability?

Writing can be really hard for young boys. The whole pencil grip and neatness seems to come with age. The thing is if you have great ideas but all your energy is put into trying to form the letters etc then it's very frustrating. Have you thought about an OT to help at all. My son was rubbish at writing until suddenly in year 5 his physical ability to write, caught up with how he wanted to order his thoughts and structure what he wanted to say.
As for reading levels, apart from feeling good because the teacher said he can read the next colour there doesn't seem a lot of point focusing on it. Just enjoy reading books he chooses from the library.

DS's school like others only seems to let Year 2 go up to lime as well (I'm not sure why either), so that may not be a battle you'll win.

Does the school really have them many different lime books? Both DS and me would have got very frustrated if he had been bringing home lime level books for the last 6 months or so. Fortunately he's allowed to read books outside of the reading scheme.

This is an interesting article.

Imo the emphasis in the UK on testing and conforming to the rigours of formal education at an early age is counterproductive. Boys especially (in my experience) do not respond well to being confined to the classroom, sitting down for long periods and being made to write when they don't want to.

Try Readtheory.org - it is a reading comprehension site which my DD enjoyed (and still does). You get points and go up levels the more you do, so it is reading comprehension made fun. Maybe he will enjoy that more than the practice tests (the child can do as much or as little as they like in one sitting). The advantage would be him perhaps enjoying reading comprehension, which might make the test less irksome for him, and you get to see roughly what his comprehension is like.

keeplooking and grasspigeons that's exactly it, I don't there is a problem as such, he is just young and a boy, and not really ready for type of education he's in. I hope and assume he will grow out of it eventually. I never had these problems with my daughters, even though one is a summer birthday, so I do think it's a boy thing. I have heard lots of people with boys with similar problems. Thanks for your help.

I think in terms of the bookbands I just need to let it go and carry on in the knowledge he is great at reading.

DS has been on Lime since October. He'll get book number 100 this week. There are plenty more to keep him going for the rest of the school year (there are over 150). We've been persisting with them because sometime soon we'll reach the Project X lime level books, which DS wants to read but I didn't want to buy for him. Other parents have just stopped their children reading the school books.

Last year he was kept on lower bands so he wouldn't run out of books this year...

They say it's so the books are age appropriate. Some of the higher level books are of course just as age appropriate, but not all. So they'd have to be screened or something.

DS has phases in which he'll read only Beast Quest books. That is, re-read the ones he owns, and has read several times already. I don't mind having the school books as something short and quick and easy, but different to what he reads by choice.

"he has no real awareness how much more advanced his home books are than his school ones, but he does have an awareness of the grading at school, and the fact there are 'harder' books there but they don't think he's good enough to read them"

If school are not going to budge on reading levels, I'm sure you can help him to understand the following:

a) The school won't let anyone in the class go beyond Lime. This is a School Rule. If they allowed it, he'd be moved up, but they don't.

b) The books he reads at home ARE much more advanced than the school books (to be honest, I can't understand why it's not very obvious to any child reading C.S. Lewis that it's in a different ball park to Lime!) You could show him this in several ways. Take him to the library and find banded books above Lime and get him reading them - or just compare the vocab, sentence construction etc. of a Lime book with a C.S. Lewis - it's really easy to spot the difference! Show him this site which assesses The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to be an upper KS2 book.

BigW, 100 books so far?????? In 40 weeks of school we are lucky if we get 30!! Now my DD2 has moved up some levels (old books, no colours) and now she gets one every TWO weeks.
I used to get worked up about it especially with DD1, but that was because stupidly we hadn't started using the library.
Anyway, now the books live in the bag. We get it out once to read it and once more if she has to do some homework. Now and again she does say that those books are SOOOO easy to read, but no big deal. They are not perceived as anything else as something the school is asking you to do.

Ginmummy, thanks, good suggestions.

Arkadia, we get up to five books/week, provided book has been signed as read and been brought back in time for book changing days.

Many of our year group's parents are a bit overly competitive about reading levels, so the book changing volunteers arranged themselves in such ways that they could give five books/week to those who read a book/day. (Seeing as HT decided that all children must read each (of over 50) books on each level before moving up... ) So at five books/week it takes the regular readers about one term to go through each level.

Library is great, also charity book shops - where I let DS choose. It's just that there are times when he chooses very same-ish books, so at least the school books though they don't provide challenge, do offer some variation.

BigW, out of interest, is it just Biff and Chip books or different kind of books, but still belonging to the same band?
At our school we only get Biff and Chip, although I read that there are others types as well.
DD1 for the first time got some kind of chapter book (6 short chapters, one chapter a week... groan!!), but it is not colour coded.

I have to say, after two kids, the ORT is still one BIG mystery to me :D

@bonbon, sorry for hijacking your thread.

Arkadia, maybe you can suggest school to subscribe to bug club?
(If I remember correctly, you are friend with HT?)

Although my ds wasn't reading school scheme books, he read 100+ a year on bug club in KS1.

Yes, I too apologise for thread hijack, though I'm thinking OP that as your DC has been reading Lime books for a similar amount of time as mine, it may be partially relevant or at least of some interest to you.

No regular BC&K at Lime I think, but lots of other ORT.

We're currently reading through ORT All Stars, we're on pack 3 or 4 I think.

We had lots of poetry collections, maybe 30 books? They re-levelled poetry collections from several bands up to Lime. Books like these. That was quite tedious. DS enjoys poetry but ended up just rushing through these.

We have some ORT True Stories coming up (looking forward to Pioneer Girl as we've recently read Little House on the Prairie together, and Neil Armstrong as they've been studying him at school), and some ORT Time Chronicles (where we'll rejoin older BC&K) and ORT Project X.

I can't remember the rest, there have been so many! Mostly ORT I think.

irvine, I'm most definitely not friends with our HT! We politely ignore each other. Our HT is very defensive, suggestions from parents make her feel criticised, and usually lead to the exact opposite than hoped for...

BigWeald, that post was addressed to Arkadia!

So I just realised irvine. Poor attention to 'details' (quite major ones) ... Sorry!

I think bug club is great because they have so many books to choose from, and get books ds normally wouldn't pick at the library. (poetry, play, etc, as well as fact books of no interest to him.)

But what is the "bug club"? I have googled it and they do have meetings at my local library, but that's for children aged 0-3...
I have had a look at the ORT All stars (never heard of it... :( ), but I cannot find anything in my library. Also, I don't think I have ever seen books banded by colour.

Ah, one thing... I am friendLY with the HT. I don't think we are friends. Indeed, I think she runs for cover when she sees me approaching :D