Where is your year one child on reading levels and maths skills now?

[MGMidget]

I just wondered as I have a year one child in a prep school but seems to be doing fine by their standards but when I read some posts on here I wonder if she is quite behind. Learning has been very disrupted for over a year now and it feels like they are repeating/revising lots because of children having different learning experiences during the lockdowns. Ours wasn't good very little 'live' teaching and what there was was more general chat with parents making business calls and drowning out/distracting the lessons or technical glitches resulting in lessons not going according to plan!

On return to school all the children seem to be given reception level reading books which were very basic. They have stepped it up now but I am wondering what others experiences have been.

Our school takes them off after lime.

However dc1 did read the 2 sets of project alien books. Which go up to i think dark red. In yr 1 i think.

I think the scheme they use will make a difference ours was a very good phonics only, whereas some use ORT older books.

parents here likely have books at home and maybe are buying sets.

Using reading chest was probably a game changer for dc1. We almosr doubled her books. Plus being able to pick from higher bands.
We also did loads of the real books at certain bands (there is a list on mn).
Less library access for dc 2 may well have made a difference as with dc1 we read pretty much all the picture books in there together before she started school.
Dc2 is just now at nearly 6 getting more into listening to stories.
Ive just done reading chest for her so will be interesting to see how much it helps. (Currently 5.9yo on red in yr r).

Our school won't move them up book bands beyond the phonics they are learning, so DD has been stuck on turquoise for ages (they told me at the beginning of the year they wouldn't move her beyond this this year). She's a good reader and reads chapter books at home. Maths - it's hard to say. She is counting in 2s, 5s and 10s and seems to be getting on ok. Was greater depth at parents evening in March but had only been back at school a couple of weeks at that point. I think there is a wide variety though. I know she is in the 'top' group of about 6 who get given different work to do than the rest (there is also a bottom group who are given different work again and I guess the rest are in the middle).

My perfectly average but also completely brilliant ds is on turquoise. I have a feeling that he's working above most the class with his reading, I don't know though and would never ask the teacher.
I like turquoise, comprehension wise I think it's the right level for him, we spend as long talking about the book as we do reading.
I have a lot of readers at home though, The Project Alien series, The Hero Academy, Star Wars!

His profile is spikey though, he can work well in 2, 5, and 10's but doesn't understand 3's.

He finds months of the years very hard to work with, he can rhyme them off but ask him to actually understand that September is 3 months before December is too hard. Days of the week a bit easier but he isn't secure at all.

Spelling is atrocious, but so is mine.

I'm not paying for his education though. I would expect him to be achieving more if I was.

Lord this thread has made me feel terrible! DS is on Green not too far off moving to Orange. His writing is shit and his maths is okay. He is July birthday.

Anyone feeling rubbish because of this thread, please remember...

1. In many countries, your child wouldn't even be in school yet
2. Research shows that children learning to read later (i.e. age 7) have completely caught up with those that learned to read younger by age 11, and have a more positive attitude towards it

I say this as the parent of a very capable P2 (Y1 equivalent) so no jealousy or sour grapes; it just makes me so sad that parents are feeling stressed out about the reading ability of children who in most (and indeed, much more successful) education systems globally would be under zero pressure to read, unless of course they chose to learn by themselves, at this age.

My daughter is 6 and in year 1. She's on white books, recently been graded to have a reading age 1 1/2 years ahead. She now has Year 2 books, she has 2 on the go as she brings one reading and one library book back.

The rule is they must read 3 times a week at home to gain golden time on a Friday which is extra time to play. This has to be written in her book by me. The kids who don't are kept in to use the time to practice their reading.

I don't feel we've done anything extra other than read every night, before bed, since she was tiny. She also has access to a book shelf both in her bedroom & downstairs. I was told when she was a toddler that one of the best things you can do for your child is ensure access to age appropriate books from early on and throughout their childhood.

Good question op, we do need to know roughly where other dc are so we can track rough progress but as pp said year 1 is very varying in ability @Mumofsend we don't know what send my dd has but she only got reading when we went back to basics with Peter and Jane books, and flash cards, then she was armed with the basics.

This one size fits all is not good, schools must be flexible and some brains will not get phonics.

I was lucky like Micheal mprppogo, one day all the letters made sense. If I had then had phonics forced on me it would have stymied my reading.

Some dc will not get or get on with phonics. My dd flew once she had the high frequency words, but she was hobbled without those building blocks.
Also breaking words down and learning about prefix and suffix have also helped her massively.
Now we have a mix of sounds and blocks and suffixes so she can quite easily spell words like occasionally.

Because we use trick for two collars and one sock to cover the cc and s. She knows the "tion sound, and that is the same with an s. Then finally she knows the suffix ally.

I urge any slow readers to try learning the basics first.

Op my advanced reader was still on the reading scheme year 1 over that summer to year two she was flying on chapter books.

Sen dd got to near the higher levels now year 3. Not quite a free reader but nearly there, we joined reading chest over lock down.

I am moana

It really depends on the dc, I am a reader, dd1 is a massive reader, specially noted throughout childhood by teachers and dd2 has had access to piles of books, read too, and rejected it all.
Didn't even like story xds etc.

So I'd suggest you provided the right stuff to a child that was born wanting it.
Like I did with dd1 but dd2 didn't want it m

There are other factors, such as how quickly a school will move them up. It really varies.

Also, how good are you school books? If you're in a school with a non existent budget, your child may not be romping through, because they're not motivated to read a constant diet of out-dated, unengaging, tatty Biff & Chipper. We have that, so we pretty much just read non-school books, and don't focus on the reading scheme.