When should a child move up reading levels?

[Nsbgsyebebdnd]

My daughter reads various reading schemes at her school and I often find that she gets to a level where she's fluent in every word and has full comprehension of the text. The teachers seem to continue with that level for ages, I'm always the one who suggests she moves up. But is there a reason they like them to continue even though fluency and comprehension is fine? She's currently at level 8.

When the books are no longer challenging imo. But in my ds’ case in yr1 it has been when we run out of books at the level the school are trying to keep him on.
Our school limits lvls but can do little but put a child up when they run out.

Reception was limit of 7
Year one was limit of 8

We supplement heavily at home with box sets and library books

Thanks for the info- so there are a set number of levels they can through within a year? Not sure how many levels exist In total

No, ds’ school is just bloody awkward. Some schools are fab and don’t limit. In ks1 it goes upto lime which is 11
www.readingchest.co.uk/book-bands#a
Not all schools use them all. There’s also ks2 bands but once again not all schools use them all.
Ds’ school goes upto purple then uses their own system.

Oh it's all bonkers - just ignore it

DD's (expensive fee paying school) insisted on them reading through all the reading levels. It got to the point in year 5 when DD absolutely refused to read any reading scheme books. She was a fluent free-reader who loves her books and the daft school was making her plod through completely uninteresting reading scheme books.

I'd been diligently trying to force her through them and then when I complained to the school that this was hard work because she didn't want to read boring shitty reading scheme books, they suddenly changed their policy and said that free readers didn't have to do them any more

Don't take it seriously and if your son shows signs of getting bored with the books go and talk to the school.

Thats really odd to make a year 5 kid read levels!! You'd expect better if you're paying.

My year 4 was "off the scheme" end year 1 but then went on it briefly beginning year 3 at Juniors apparently but continued to read own books and that was fine - renamed a free reader.

My year 1 is on band 10 but allowed to read what they like outside of school so currently reading charlottes web!

Kids at ds’ school after year two need to read so many books for that years lvl before becoming a free reader.

They are refusing to make ds a free reader in yr 1.

Well if you're asking about should, the answer is that the books should match the child's phonics ability.

So when the child improves in phonics, they should get new books to practise their new phonics abilities.

So it says in the national curriculum, and I gather that this is statutory.

However the reality is rather different and depends entirely on your particular school. And anyway, beyond level 6/orange or so there is little clear 'phonics' progression anymore anyway.

What I would say though is that we have had more issues with high level books than with low level books. Higher book bands can sometimes be inappropriate for younger kids, or just scary, or boring. At the same time they can be long, so a child can get stuck on a boring 150 page book for a long time. If you get 'too easy' books at least it will only take you minutes to read and you can spend your time reading what you enjoy instead.

Tbh though there are great transitional books that don’t have just all text like the storey treehouse books, dogman, the boffin boy comic type books.
Also reading picture books as they aimed at adults reading to children and have more complex words and sentence structure.
OP also def try summer reading challenge at library.

I spend a lot of time writing "very easy, what do we need to do to go up a level?", reading the school issued book very quickly, and then going onto much more interesting stuff than biff chip and kipper! KS2 do things differently in this school, I've been promised by a teacher friend. Let's see what level they put him on by Christmas!

Just pray you don’t end up with ort jackdaw books 😂

This seems to vary so much between schools. Ours has old books (this is bad - for everyone) and doesn't seem to have rigid rules (this is good - for us).

We do the following:

• Write notes every week in the reading diary (which might include the fact that the book was a bit easy, read fluently and comprehension was good)

• Provide plenty of other books for DD from the library

• Write details of her wider reading in the reading record, so the school knows what she’s doing

As Brilliotic has mentioned, occasionally the content of school books has not been appropriate, if it’s too scary, themed for older children, or assumed a lot of knowledge/interests suitable for an older child.

Occasionally we’ve sent back a book unread/unfinished, and made a note in the record. It wound me up the first couple of times, but I’ve got over it!

Beyond that, we’ve given up worrying. If you feel school is limiting your child's progress with reading, it’s so easy to supplement at home. Save your battles.

We move children up when we feel they are ready. They may read one book in a book band, they may read 20. I've just checked all of Year 2 for moderation, the moderator watched videos of them reading to check for fluency, accuracy and comprehension.

I wouldn't worry about the level, just keep reading at home. I never understand the term 'free reader', at our school that means you can choose a book to read from the library. Which of course you could already do before having that label, you just have your scheme book too.

INteresting that others have experienced the same. As far as I'm aware there isn't a policy at our school but they seem happy to keep them plodding on the same level which can get very boring!!
Yep, I agree I think I'll have to broaden her horizons at home. I loved reading so much as a child so I want her to see what a wonderful world of excitement there is in books.

Good idea re letting the school know what she is also reading at home etc

In our old school we were given books to read according to the level but there were always some words my DD did not know. But the most important task was to discuss the book, its characters, predict the development of the story etc. In our new school child is allowed to chose the book from the school library herself. We always supplemented school reading with extra books for extra home reading.

My Y1 son is bored out of his mind with school books. Luckily I am a teacher so I bring books home from work.
The school he is at has a very different system in that he can bring a green book band book home and the next one is a yellow book band! I queried this and even the Y1 teacher seemed a bit perplexed by this other teachers ‘book system’ and said she was very ‘particular’ about it. I asked why he was bringing home books that consolidated phase 3 digraphs when he was actually reading books with alternative spelling patterns and pronunciations!

I gave up with my child’s school. He is happily reading his own books st home (Mog stories) plus I a bribing him one orange and turquoise books which he is happily reading quite fluently.
The books from his school aren’t even read with by the class teacher. Mostly TAs or volunteers so they tend just to ‘put in on the next book in the list’ regardless of ability.

I had this very same argument when he was in YR. He was on phone no books for 8 months! Had I had a child on a book band for 8 months I would be hauled in asking why the child has not made progress.