DS has always been fine with learning to read. His school follow RWI and by the end of Year 1 he has just started Set 7 books (grey) which I think is roughly equivelant to gold Oxford Reading tree? Possibly this was slightly ahead for his age but he was doing well, reading fluently and with good comprehension.
Beginning of year 2 this year and he was reassessed and put down two levels, to Set 5 (turquoise ort?). He was a bit put out because he didn't want to reread stories he has brought home a few times before. He even made a comment about being bad at reading, so it seemed to knock his confidence a little. We had a good talk and I reassured him the level itself doesn't matter, it's about learning to read, enjoy reading and be able to read cool stories. We now read a mix of set books and his own stories at home.
But the thing is he seems to almost be going backwards. Stumbling more, needing to sound things out more, adding random words like 'the' and also guessing words the look similar rather than sounding out when unsure. I'm sure I've read somewhere guessing words is seen as a sign the child can't decode? What's strange is these are sounds and words he was absolutely fine with before. It's like he is more uncertain now and it seems to be getting worse as the term goes on, not better.
How can I best support him and what will his teacher be looking for? What do RWI assessments look like, how are levels decided? I can imagine him finding nonsense words for example weird. Would like to understand because it feels a bit like his level is assessed based on an assessment tool rather than how he reads actual books, and this has in turn knocked his confidence and made things harder for him.