Y1 reading levels ( read write inc)

[Suzi7979]

Hi, do any of your kids school use read write Inc, if so at what level/ colour is your y1 child at?

Hi and yes. I'm a teacher myself and have a real love/hate relationship with it. My boy is a late July birthday (so not yet 5 and a half) but is reading pretty fluently. This afternoon he read 'Peace at Last' which back in the day when I was a y2 SATS moderator was L2B and a core text for moderation purposes. I've just checked and it is book band purple, so with the raised expectations of the new curriculum is now early Y2 standard. He is familiar with the story but we haven't read it for a very long time.
At school, he is in the middle read, write inc group and currently reading Level 3 (pink???) a book called 'So Cool'. He is pretty confident with most set 3 sounds but phonics isn't his preferred method. He uses context and sight words and only uses phonics if I really insist. This, I guess, is the reason he is in the middle group and not the top group. That, and the fact that as a young in the year boy, his writing is not very mature and spelling is not at the same level as his reading - and his school use RWI for writing as well as reading. So I don't like RWI for my boy as I feel it is 'glass ceiling' him. But I can see it works better for other children.

Thank you so much for your reply. I also don't like Read write inc. My DS is also born on July and is on pink level and the middle phonic group. My child prefers kipper or other stories, so we read more of that at home.

Yes I agree with you. The RWI stories are written to be decoded rather than enjoyed as a story. Kids need to learn phonics but I'm not a fan. Are you worried about your son or just curious as to where he sits in relation to other Y1 kids?

I am just curious to know. Most of the kids in my Sons class are in the lowest level. Most of them reading red and Green books.

If you're in England then the books sent home should match his current phonics knowledge and skills but that doesn't mean you can't use other books at home (personally not a fan of RWI) but I'd recommend using other decodables that support what he is learning rather than encourage ineffective strategies.

Can you recommend any decodable books or book series?

My dd just moved to yellow level. She is in middle reading group.
Her school keeps all the rwi books in. She takes books from Oxford reading tree and other reading schemes home. Tbh I don’t see much difference among the schemes.

https://www.phonicbooks.co.uk

@Suzi7979

I am just curious to know. Most of the kids in my Sons class are in the lowest level. Most of them reading red and Green books.

How do you know?

I'm having an ongoing discussion with school on this - not helped that it keeps getting interrupted by various isolations and lockdowns. My son is on the pink books which are far too easy for him. He was confident with all his set two sounds when he went back to school in June, but they held him back because of his nonsense word assessment (there's a three pronged assessment apparently- do you know your sounds, can you make nonsense words, can you do speedy reading). His tendency was to try and find the right word. If we'd have known this was a part of any assessment we would have taught him the skill! Now they're saying he didn't do the speedy reading well enough but again we've practiced with a set of flash cards and he's fine.

I get the impression they won't start on set three sounds until year 2 although we've taught him nearly all of them at home and he's been reading them in books we are reading outside rwi.

I bought a set of the biff chip and kipper books on amazon stage 3 which cover all the set 3 sounds and are proper stories unlike rwi. It's 16 books for £45 so not cheap, but given we're not getting what we need from school it's a necessity. He's reading them really well hence being so annoyed that he is being held back at school

"His tendency was to try and find the right word. If we'd have known this was a part of any assessment we would have taught him the skill! "

The point of the assessment is to identify those children who are not applying skills already taught and who attempt to substitute unknown words with words they already know. This is a classic sign of a weak reader.
Nonsense/pseudo words are used to ensure the child is actually reading what's there ... it's not something you need to teach as they should be doing this with every word they meet, real or pseudo.

I disagree - it's a skill readers use to see an unknown word and use both their phonics knowledge and their known vocabulary to work it out.

The point is - as soon as we told him that these were nonsense words and that he shouldn't be looking for a word he knows he was absolutely fine with it.

He is not a weak reader as you imply. I think some teachers need to realise that parents have taught their children more than teachers in the last twelve months and so do probably know them better!

A child who is substituting words is doing neither

He wasn't substituting words- where did I say that? Anyway maybe just remove the huge chip on your shoulder- I will agree to disagree. Teachers are clearly never ever wrong. I bow to your superior expertise.

My Yr1 DD is on yellow books which is the top group in her class but she is one of the oldest. She definitely suits a phonics heavy approach. We did the Ruth Miskin daily YouTube videos in the first lockdown and she did the set 3 sounds lessons although she hadn’t done them at school. I am now finding it quite difficult to get her to read the school books at home now because they are a bit boring next to other things she reads.

phonics is a means to an end - to get children reading. As children develop a sight vocabulary, the need for using phonics cues diminishes. Decodable books (especially RWI) are boring and contrived. Giving children (obviously when they have a decent grasp of how reading works phonetically) less decodable books enables them to practise reading for meaning and to develop their sight vocabulary. Which, as they grow older, are far more important skills than phonics. When, do we as, adults ever use phonics when reading? No. we have a huge sight vocabulary and if we ever don't know what a word says, we use context cues to work out it's meaning and then it really doesn't matter how it is meant to be pronounced.

@Oilyvoir I think you've nailed it re the glass ceiling bit - that's what frustrates me. That because they have such a rigid assessment approach he has been consolidating set 2 sounds for nearly a year , going over the same tricky words over and over, reading the same boring stories that he was reading a year ago at home.
We are having to supplement at home because I don't want to destroy his love of reading. But it just seems such a waste of lesson time to be going over and over the same things. If we weren't learning set 3 sounds his writing wouldn't be moving on in the way that it is now - I worry sometimes he will think the only way to write the I sound is igh!

"phonics is a means to an end - to get children reading. As children develop a sight vocabulary, the need for using phonics cues diminishes."

The evidence doesn't support your opinion. Phonics is for life not just for beginners. Our brains process every letter/sound in words they do not recognise them as wholes as was previously believed.

"Giving children (obviously when they have a decent grasp of how reading works phonetically) less decodable books ..." all books are decodable once you have the knowledge and skills to enable you to do so (it's why the curriculum says books should match the child's phonics knowledge and skills) whether we are talking about RWI books are War and Peace or A Brief History of Time.

OP if your child is still working on phase 2 sounds they don't yet have the knowledge to read more complex texts without resorting to ineffective strategies. At this stage it's possible to look like a "reader" by relying on memory and pictures but in the long term this leads to problems for many children.

Some of the comments here aren't right, or I've misunderstood.

I am a Year 6 teacher. Year 6 children, and secondary students, still use "phonics" or more correctly "morphology" to break down unfamiliar words and read them. Morphology is how the words are build up and phonics is a subset of morphology. Children cannot expand their vocabulary through independent reading if they aren't able to use morphology to read words that they've never come across before. This does extend into adulthood, although adults much more rarely come across unfamiliar words when reading.

A Year 6 reading "dissatisfied" for the first time should be able to use morphology, including phonics, to sound the word out in its four syllables. They should then be able to link it to the root word "satisfy" and then understand that "dis" makes the word opposite and "ied" makes it past tense.

Phonics is a means to an end, but it doesn't stop once phase 5 phonics ends.

Sorry, massively off track from the OP!

I am a fan of RWI. I do teach it though 5 times a day.
Pretty sure that Ruth Miskin has opened up the videos and books again for this current lockdown. Might be worth a look.

I’m surprised to read on here that the set 3 sounds are not covered until year 2. My DS is in reception and he is in the top group for phonics but he’s already covered all of the set 2 sounds and we have now started covering set 3 at home. His school sends home reading books from the Oxford reading scheme as well as RWI ones and others. We prefer the Oxford ones. Have you signed up to the Oxford Owl website OP? There are quite a few free ebooks on there for every level.

Thanks for the replies.
I have signed up to the Oxford owl website. It's interesting to see how levels varies in different school. Its first now in the last month I understand how they use phonics to help the kids learn to read.

@Suzi7979

I am just curious to know. Most of the kids in my Sons class are in the lowest level. Most of them reading red and Green books.

I think you are confused op. RWI is part of the Oxford scheme I believe. Here is a guide on where children should be though it varies based on the child's development and aptitude hugely

cdn.oxfordowl.co.uk/2019/07/19/13/52/18/160/OxfordLevelsAndBookBands.png

oops, I meant to add this attachment with the translation between the two schemes.