DS in Reception just started Level 3 Books - confused

[Ahmawa]

I am a bit confused, the school my DS attends follows the Jollyphonics scheme and uses the ORT books - Biff Chip and Kipper and according to his teacher he seems to be reading well. He and about two others have just started level 3.

A friend who kids attends at a nearby primary in reception year as well was mentioning that all their class has moved onto level 3 and have finished all of their vowel diagraphs. My DS class is about halfway through theirs. She mentioned that the school is teaching the class too slow?

Is my friend being a bit pushy?

Doesn't that depend on actual cohort? Or Maybe the teaching is more effective so the children are advancing faster?

Parents seem obsessed with racing through the levels. Cohort will play a part but some schools do take more time to ensure not just reading but comprehension are embedded and secure before moving on.

Seriously don’t worry. If you read with your child at home too they will be fine.

Either that school rushes everyone onto higher levels whether they can read them or not, or they have an unusually able cohort or your friend is confused.

Level 3 is a good standard for half way through yr. However in reception there's a huge range you would expect quite a few to not reach this level yet (and probably a few on a higher level). The expected standard is level 3 by the end of the year (although a few don't make it) . A few might be free readers while a few others will still be struggling to blend and on level 1 at the end of the year.

I'm reading with kids at our primary. I find most kids are reading books too advanced eg they have double letter sounds but can't sound them out as they don't know them. It's all very subjective tbh as I've had teachers move my child to a very advanced level eg level 10 only to be put right back to level 2 by another teacher when he moved school.

Can he read the book accurately first time? As the old ort books werent phonic.
How fast classes move on will depend on how frequently they change the books it varies from 1-15 books a week. And how frequently school read with them

I think another factor can be the nursery/preschool they attended. If the other school's children come from the certain nursery/preschool which does teach phonics, then I can see all the children will be advanced. My ds's nursery was attached to primary, and did some phonics teaching and had close contact with the primary school, like getting books for the children who are more advanced.

My DS gets a phonics book and story book of the same level once a week. He reads the books fist time and the teacher writes it in his reading log.

We then read the books with him and update his reading log of what we did.

He gets a wordbox and new diagraphs in his reading pack twice a week.

I teach phonics to up to 50 children per day. They are working at a variety of levels. Some have nearly finished phase 3, some are still very much working on phase 2, and oral segmenting and blending. It absolutely depends on the cohort.

Usual pace for jolly phonics would be the 44 sounds, including the vowel digraphs, before Christmas and to have moved on to alternative spellings in Spring and Summer terms. So your school is behind that.

I’d guess what they actually mean is they’re using the actions though, in which case neither of you are wrong. Teaching all 44 sounds just over Autumn or spread over Autumn and the First half of spring both seem to be fairly common.

I’m sure your school knows what they are doing. I’d ignore your friend. As long as your child is happy at school and isn’t bored by what they are doing, I’d let them get on with it. They are only little in reception, let them have fun playing in the sand and junk modelling, they will still be learning really important skills doing that. Make sure you are doing lots of reading at home, both you reading to your dc and getting dc to read to you, asking them to recount stories back to you, what might happen next, describe the pictures, picking out words and sounding them out, little things like that, I’m sure your child will do fine.

Your child is on the same reading level as my DS who is 6 and in Yr1! It's the same as with developmental milestones - do not compare your child to anyone else.

My DS is behind with reading despite the fact we have read to him every day since he was a baby. He may well not reach the required level in the phonics screening test but I don't care. He is happy, well mannered and engaged at school which is much more important for his future success than what reading level he is at.