Following on from the thread about book bands/reading age expectations, what book band is your reception child on?

[Wornout8]

Genuine interested question to see how this varies from school to school, also is you child considered low, middle or high ability for reading, many thanks

DS is on the yellow book band. He and about five other children (out of 30) are in the 'high ability' group. DS and about half of his class have english as an additional language.

His teacher has told us that DS will not be moved up to the next reading level this term, despite being ready.

This will enable the school to show that he has progressed 'enough' in year 1, according to his teacher.

What!

Yup- we are not impressed. DS is on the waiting list for another school. His current school is falling apart at the seams.

DS (Jan birthday) has been on blue band for about a month. Considered very able but not top of the class.

DD is on blue. She's August born and couldn't read at all when she started reception so we are very pleased with her progress. The teachers seem happy too. I'm not sure what book bands other children are on.

Dd (May birthday) is on Green band. She's one of the better readers in the class but not the best!

I say this as a parent who has older child. Book level at reception doesn't really matter in later tears.
By yr3, most of children will catch up to certain level.
Some of them who were way ahead in reception actually falls behind.
What is really important is getting secure phonics knowledge and good comprehension, rather than going ahead with book band levels, ime.

DS was on pink for the whole of reception.

*years!

Ds is top in the year (I think) and on purple. I expect he'll probably go up again once more this year.

In reception we didn't do bands just worked through all the dandelion launcher/reader books which were boring to listen to but a great foundation for later, now in year 1 he's Finished the bands available a is a 'library reader' and next year will go onto accelerated reader program - whatever that is!

DS has just moved up to yellow (band 3). He's a June Birthday.
No idea how this compares to the rest of the class, we aren't told that. School seem to be happy that he is making progress.

Ds on blue. School also totally uninterested in challenging able children in reception as then have to show progression through the school. Much easier to keep them average so school can't be seen to 'fail' the high achievers as they were seen to be doing by ofsted.

I'm not sure - he started off on ORT books but is now reading some other books which don't seem to correspond to the ORT levels. He's reading OUP level 11 (lime) books at home.

DD was 5 in November. She gets purple band books from school.

According to her teacher she's "the most advanced reception reader" that she's taught. I found this hard to believe as my friend's DD in another school (different county) is of similar level and in top group at school, but one of many of her level in that group. I'd also grown to understand from Mumsnet that there's usually a handful of advanced readers in every reception class.

Obviously not the case in DD's class where she has to be in a guided reading group on her own as there are no other kids close enough to her level to work in a group together.

DD is on Yellow C but they have told us they are holding her back, also like a pp, because they don't want her to have read all the books before getting to year 1 as 'the Year 1 teachers don't like it'!! We just read around it and at home she is on the Turqoise books.

I am far more relaxed about this second time round - first time round with dd it seemed so important and I was so proud of my advanced reader - think she was on ort 9/10 by end of reception. 3 years on they have mostly all levelled out and some that finished reception on ort 2 are now better and more enthusiastic natural readers than her !

DS is on Yellow, has been since xmas and is in top group of his year. Has been ready to move to Blue but much like dylexicdementor11 have been told he won't move up until the rest of the able group are ready for blue.

Books should,match the child's phonic knowledge and ability not the level some arbitrary group is reading!

OK - back in the dark ages, when my children were in Reception, the way it worked was:

• They had daily phonics lessons
• They had reading books to take home that were matched exactly to their own, individual level
• They did group reading, from towards the end of the year, which used different books from the individual readers and which might be at a somewhat different level, but one that it was good for the group to learn from at that moment

So I don't get the 'can't move ahead of their group' thing. Yes, a group might read the same book in "guided reading" type lessons, which focus on discussing 'the book' - plot, characters, inference, retrieval of information etc (IME many schools have moved to do this at a whole class level, rather than as groups, but that is by the by). However I don't understand at all why individual reading books should be matched to a group at all.

And again IME, most good schools have moved away from 'limited stages of books in individual classrooms' to a whole school, or at least whole key stage, stock of books that can be closely matched to a child's ability both to decode and comprehend.

I think if they had left my son on yellow he would have been a PITA. Sadly if he finds a book too easy he starts to play up.
It's stupid to leave them all on yellow so others can catch up, although at DS' school that seems to be mid ability in reception.

Also I've found that the later books also facility other learning as they have much more breadth and introduce topics that can facility discussion like history, bulling, conservation etc etc.

When DS was at the end of reception, the class ranged from orange (3 children) to pink (quite a few). A couple of kids not really accessing pink yet. The majority on yellow.

There was a new reception teacher the following year, who did things differently. The entire class save one (who was on yellow) left reception on red or pink (majority red). I have no clue what they were/are thinking. I can't believe none of those children could have done with moving up. It must have been some kind of strategy, a plan with intent.

I suspect they have changed things again this year. I know one child who started reception reading beyond lime, I wonder what they did about that :)

Agree with irvine, the reading book levels really don't mean much. Schools handle the levels very differently, with some giving home easier books, other harder ones, and others again following random 'programmes'. Anyway, children will make reading progress even if they're on 'too low' a level, especially if you support them at home.

The only thing that I'd worry about is that your child gets 'decodable' books closely matched to their phonics ability. I asked the reception teacher to move DS up a level purely because a) he knew the phonics for the next level up, and b) he had exhausted the 'decodable' books on his current level and was being given 'look and say' books instead, and was thus learning bad habits such as guessing based on pictures and initial letter sounds.

I felt sorry for some kids who laboured through scores of 'look and say' books, never moving up a level because they were struggling with the words they hadn't been taught how to read yet. Accordingly losing confidence, starting to feel 'stupid'. And being told off by TAs for 'guessing' - when the books encouraged/necessitated guessing. With the class meanwhile being taught the phonics for the next level books, but these kids not being allowed to move on to the matching decodable books as they were struggling with the non-decodable books on the level below.
(I very very carefully tried to sound out what these kids' parents thought about it all, but they were firmly of the 'I don't get it but I'm sure the teacher knows best, so will leave them to it' persuasion, so I let it be.)