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Reading bands

81 replies

Itsallfuckery · 30/12/2017 21:21

Just wondering what reading band your year 2 children are all on? My dd is coming home with lime books since moving from white, but I’m sure with dd1 we jumped from white to free reading in year 2. These books seem so blinking tedious!

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DailyMailareDicks · 01/01/2018 13:32

DS school has all the books in the central corridor, so perfectly accessible. I had hoped it was a stats thing, because laziness doesn’t sit right with me, and makes me feel really sad for DS. YR1 teacher said they plumped for purple as DS kept reading fluently everything they put in front of him, and was able to show comprehension as well. His school is high ranking, outstanding Ofsyead blah blah. Other mums have said standards and expectations are really high in our school compared with others locally. I don’t know as not in a position to know, but kind of understand from an employer perspective how massaging the stats can make a big difference to perceived performance. Oh dear.

DailyMailareDicks · 01/01/2018 13:37

Should add they do PUMA and PIRA tests, DS is above average in both, 119 and 117. So they are assessing his ability regularly.

MiaowTheCat · 01/01/2018 13:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

RebelRogue · 01/01/2018 13:38

@Norestformrz thank you for that. I was told to work on it but no idea how. Plus, the kid is a faffer. Even her teacher admitted that, well she said DD is "very relaxed". I'm not particularly fussed but I dunno,it feels a bit unfair .

Norestformrz · 01/01/2018 13:45

I've got children who because of speech problems (don't speak at 90 words per minute for various reasons, one has a pronounced stammer) will not achieve 90 words per minute yet is an accurate reader with great understanding.

MummyItsallaboutyou · 01/01/2018 13:49

My yr 2 DS is on white. We rarely read the school books as he finds them tedious and very often they have pages missing. We read books from the library, the Ladybird classic tales, the Walker short chapter books. As others have said, some schools move onto free reader earlier than others.

user789653241 · 01/01/2018 13:50

Rebel, that sound bonkers to decide the level by words per minute.
I think only way to increase fluency is to practice, but there are more important thing than speed for reading.

RebelRogue · 01/01/2018 13:58

She had a speech delay when she started nursery. She had speech therapy and all that. She still can't pronounce some words properly. Finds b,d differentiation tricky in reading and writing so that slows her down a bit. But has a good bank of HFW's that she reads by sight, good phonics knowledge and decodes accurately most of the time. Comprehension is also good , as is summarising. She's on turquoise(has been since week 3 of y1) now and can read a whole book in one sitting...takes about 10-15 mins. Can't read(correctly)more than 50ish words a minute though.

catkind · 01/01/2018 14:17

With ds I have also been told they want to let other kids catch up.

What a terrible thing to say. Poor kids. And then MN says ah well they weren't gifted after all, look the others have all caught up by the end of Y2 Hmm

In DD's case my suspicion is it may be the head blocking things. Plus lack of resources. There's a lot of 'not allowed' when we talk to the teachers. DD's reception teacher came up with a more accurate assessment of her ability very fast after that baseline parents' evening, and set more appropriate targets, so she's not completely incompetent. Which makes it all the more mystifying why she hadn't assessed properly in the first place. Unless she wasn't allowed.

Norestformrz · 01/01/2018 14:24

I'd go for accuracy over speed any day rebel

RebelRogue · 01/01/2018 14:31

Thank you both. I'll stop derailing this thread now and maybe make my own if it's still an issue at parent's evening in February.

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 01/01/2018 15:48

Tbh it won’t make a huge difference in terms of ds’ progress as a lot of what he knows is self taught anyhow as he reads well and uses this to search out whatever knowledge he wants, generally space and science related. What he can’t find himself we are providing for him as we very much have a house of books and that helps him.
Tbh thou I foresee problems as a bored ds is not a good thing and I will not be sympathetic for the school staff if he starts to play up and causing low level disruption as even they have admitted in forms sent to other agencies that he isn’t challenged at school.
He also may well hit ceiling for books next year by end of this.

MidniteScribbler · 01/01/2018 20:03

Can't read(correctly)more than 50ish words a minute though.

When I do running records, I take in to account any speech issues or language issues (for example, I won't mark certain accent mispronunciations as an error if I know the child knows and understands the word, but is unable to pronounce it correctly due to that accent). I also would expect a different level of fluency from a child with a speech disorder vs one that doesn't.

I have been the 'bad guy' this year, because many of my students came to me with a reading level far beyond what I would have assessed them at (new school). They can read every word on a page, but can't tell me what the story was about, or apply any inference or make connections to the text. As a result, very few of my students have moved 'up' reading levels this year as I won't move them until they can show all reading strategies, not just decoding words on a page. My principal is supportive of this, as she doesn't believe in reading levels anyway (we are doing away with them completely next year) and doesn't want students going up to the next grade without having learnt all of the reading strategies they need. I'm happy to explain this to any parent and also back it up by showing them assessments on their child. All of the parents I've spoken to are supportive once I explain to them why I am doing what I'm doing.

bearstrikesback · 02/01/2018 18:46

So has anyone ever actually seen what good extension work looks like in maths?

DD is Y2 (6) and we are not sure what to actually ask for. They know she is very able, but to be honest I am not sure they really know how able - column addition, subtraction, multiplication (any number of digits), long division, simplifying and manipulating fractions etc. This week we have been discussing binary numbers and Pythagoras thanks to Penrose the mathematical cat! At the minute class seems to involve a lot of worksheets with the 'extension' being slightly more difficult, additional worksheets. When the rest of the class is still working she is reading a book. To me this doesn't seem very challenging but what does good practice look like? There is also no access to computers in the class room, so no sumdog (which she does at home).

To be honest, we could carry on with what he have been doing with her at home, my concern is that at some point she may well start to cause difficulties in class if not challenged - at the moment she still finds it amusing.

Similar situation in reading but she has been reading whatever she wanted to at home since reception, with just a quick read of the scheme book.

So has anyone ever successfully managed to get good extension work for their KS1 child, and if so, what did it look like?

user789653241 · 02/01/2018 19:14

That was for bearstrikesback.

bearstrikesback · 02/01/2018 19:23

Thanks Irvineoneohone ,we look at nrich and wildmaths a lot - both are really useful. Have you seen any good extension work used in the classroom though - or did the teachers use the above sites for resources?

catkind · 02/01/2018 20:34

Bear, Dd's teacher has sometimes given her "how many ways can you"/"how many different answers can you get" type challenges relating to what the others are doing (yr 1). I don't know if that would be enough for your DD, for mine it is great as makes her think through systematically and logically. And then teacher will ask her to write something down to explain her system.
DS teacher does I think use nrich printouts for extension work. (Though he is KS2 if it makes a difference.)
I don't know how often either of these are happening as both post parents evening (and around Ofsted visit, cynical hat on), but it's a glimmer of hope!

MidniteScribbler · 02/01/2018 21:06

For my students who are working above level, they are usually asked to do something relating to real world application of whatever topic we are doing, as many students who may be strong in theoretical maths find it challenging when asked to apply that to real life situations. I have a lot of children that are tutored through a particular system (that I completely disagree with) and are very good at rote learning, but really struggle when it comes to application.

user789653241 · 02/01/2018 21:07

No, Bear, we haven't really had good extension work unfortunately. Though yr2 teacher tried. She sent him to yr4 for maths, but it was still too easy.
Since yr3, it's nothing, due to the school's approach of not going beyond year group and mastery/deepening.
I totally gave up expecting from school. He has access to whatever work he wants to do at home. He says work is too easy at school, but he isn't a kind to complain or misbehave. Luckily, he is quite good at extending work himself to make it more interesting.

catkind · 02/01/2018 21:59

Midnite, that works terribly for my kids, though it's good to understand why teachers may have thought their extension work was extending. I had some very cross purpose conversations with DS teacher where they were saying they were giving DS "maths problems" but all I could find in their books was simple arithmetic expressed in words. As my two started in the practical before moving on to the abstract in their learning, that was more like a step easier than a step harder than just giving them sums. Only difficulty presented is at some point training the DC to write down the sum not just the answer.

The nrich stuff DS had is in a different league, they are 4, 5 + step problems and some of the steps are non obvious.

Norestformrz · 03/01/2018 06:34

Irvine have you seen https://thirdspacelearning.com/resource-free-fluent-five-arithmetic-pack-week-1-years-3-6/ not sure if they do KS3

user789653241 · 03/01/2018 08:32

Thank you mrz. He is actually very good at arithmetic, almost like a computer.
Recent his light bulb moment was an imaginary numbers. Looking at his excitement he got from learning it on Khan, I really felt sorry for him not getting it through school work.
He can easily do ks3 work and some ks4, if it only involve manipulating numbers or applying formula.
Like cat, what I think he need is multiple step problem solving, which he actually need to use his brain.

user789653241 · 03/01/2018 09:07

Oh, thank you mrz, it sounds like good practice for him. Yes, word problems are definitely his weak point. Seems like you know my ds better than me! (But it maybe inevitable, you must have seen many someone like my ds over the years)

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