Year 1 Emerging

[Spry]

We've recently received a school report for my DS who is just about to turn 6 and is in Year 1.

He is considered "Emerging" for Reading.

I was slightly disappointed by this as he is reading the Oxford Reading Tree Level 7 books beautifully fluently and answering questions about what he reads with no difficulty. (I actually feel he could do with being moved up a Level or two as I don't think Level 7 is stretching him).

Would you consider this to be Year 1 "Emerging"?

(He's also down as "Emerging" for Writing and Maths, but I don't know how to gauge whether this is accurate as the info we have on what's expected at each staff is baffling.)

Thank you for any thoughts you have.

The next level up from emerging is met.
In order to reach met, the teacher has to have evidence of him reaching a multitude of targets, many times. Hes not going to be ' met' at this early stage in the year.
Dont worry about it and keep encouraging the reading....sounds like he's doing really well.

Thanks for your reply. At our school, the three possible categories are "Emerging", "Developing" and "Expected". I had assumed this was standardised nationally, but perhaps this isn't the case.

I haven't been able to find any info on what delineates these different categories for Year One children (though there seems to be a wealth of info on how kids make progress thru EYFS).

The assessment for reading doesn’t just go on books that children read themselves and the level of the book. It’s much broader than that.

There isn’t going to be much online about what delineates the categories, they’ll be school specific. If you are worried your best bet is to talk to the teacher.

The school sets its own targets for the end of Y1, so you'll have to check with the teacher.

I've read on MN that some schools like to give children 'emerging' or 'working towards' in the early reports in the year, as to give them 'expected' would imply that they'd already covered the whole year's material, which would encourage parents to ask how their super-bright child is being challenged...

Thanks v much for your replies everyone. I agree that talking this through with the teacher would be useful.

I would query that with the teacher as there may be an isolated issue that's meant he isn't meeting the target. I thought in Y1 an average student would go from levels 4-6 so 7 would be fairly good at this stage.

I would be concerned he either isn't demonstrating his ability in class or he's missing some other skill that he needs help with.

The reading levels in school are a measure of nothing.

They are personal to that school only and one school may have 24 books in one level whilst another may have 70.

Emerging is about where most children are at the moment.
They are still learning the skills to move on to Expected/At/ or whatever term your school uses.

Reading is about knowing what the word means out of context, expression, using punctuation, knowing how a character might feel, being able to answer the questions the adult poses around the situation. Using any images to draw out information. What might be in the basket and why? Why is the person dressed that way? What does the weather imply.

Speak to the teacher if in doubt

I don't agree that the reading levels aren't a measure of anything. You can tell at home if your child is fluently reading a book and whether they've understood the content. Obviously some children are better than others at deducing a word from context which they might not be able to read otherwise but it'll certainly give you a good insight into their level.

Book banding is based purely on the length of words, the number of words per line and lines per page not on difficulty of text so not a good or effective measure of reading ability.

My ds turned 6 in late August (so year 2 now but was the same age as your son is now at the end of year 1). He is only on stage 3 books and got developing at the end of year 1, so I expect your ds would have been assessed as working at the expected level were he at my son’s school. Unless there’re comprehension difficulties, I wouldn’t worry in your case (I am quite worried about my ds though!)

Moving through the levels isn't based on decoding. So you could read every word in the book beautifully and with expression and still not move up if you haven't got a clue what you've just read .