Oxford Reading Tree

[MidiMitch]

DS is in Reception and on Yellow band (stage 3) of Oxford Reading Tree. Does anyone know whether this would be broadly average?

www.readingchest.co.uk/book-bands

This may help, but don’t worry too much about the bands. Ask questions about the book make sure he understands what he has read.

Sounds average to me. I worked in Y1 last year, and all but three of the children came up from Reception Yellow or below. There will be some outliers (kids who don't recognise any sounds yet, kids who are reading chapter books) but Yellow is about right at this point of Reception, in my opinion.

My son is in reception & also on yellow band ORT. From what I can tell from his classmates, there are more children on lower bands/picture books than any further on.

I'd be more concerned about whether it's decodable or not - is it a Floppy's phonics, or a Songbird?

Or just your generic ORT? (Non-decodable)

Why are you concerned?

Not concerned but aware that he couldn't read or write at all before he started in reception and hoping he is getting on ok.

About where ds was this time last year.

Sounds about right but on the higher end of normal so doing well

My 4yo is in reception and top of the class along with 2 other children for reading.

They're all still on pink currently....

Drives me a little mad as at home she's reading much more complex things, but it's the highest performing school in the county and the reception teacher has been there a long time, so I am just trusting her with it......

There is no benefit to rushing children along the reading levels

There is also no benefit to comparing them to the rest of the class.

They're learning to read, why not just let them get on with it?

Different schools use the reading levels very differently. DC's current school seem to have them all on same 2ish levels at any given stage regardless of ability. So even the ones that can't decode a single word independently were bringing home yellow level in year 1, and DD who can fluently read chapter books was bringing home blue. DS's previous school wouldn't let them off level 2 until they were decoding at sight and ticked off a range of random comprehension targets.

Unless they're very pushy with the levels, yellow would be doing well at this stage though.