Y1 bookbands after covid

[HSHorror]

Wondering how y1 book bands have been affected by covid lockdowns in reception.
Mine is stuck on blue. Which seems unusual in their year. They can read at least up to purple though. It's not necessarily covid related though as dc had been stubborn about not stopping blending which obviously makes their reading slower etc.
However i was looking and they only had 57% of the books they should have had for reception. (Some of that was lilely where they often forgot to put the book box out and other times would randomly move it so you couldnt see among the parents and it only looked like they forgot. We had to close early for summer holidays too missing at least 3 books there too.
So obviously being compared to kids who missed almost no books or time at school. (They gave us zero lockdown books and unfortunately dc was still only covering digraphs during jan-mar last year. And although could do those easily last year was left on basically those books until now really.
Other issues where school are enforcing reading books three times etc.
I think dc may be messing about when reading at school which is then affecting the books we get.

Are you saying your DC can independently read Purple book band books, but the school won't move themm beyond Blue?
That's quite a discrepancy.
You also mention about being stuck on blending - is that now resolved so that they now read most words on sight or decode on the run?
Messing about should not affect the books he is given directly, but may affect school's ability to assess him, or for him to learn effectively in guided reading sessions. Do you know how bad the messing around is?
Assuming he is reading purple books independently and sufficiently fluently (ie. not because you had read them to him previously), I would contact the school and tell them this, and ask for him to be reassessed.

Is the issue here about phonics teaching? There is guidance now that reading books must match what a child is able to decode, which makes sense in itself. But my DC's school is interpreting this as 'books must match the phonics we have taught in class'. This is way below the level of DS2's reading, which means we're in the bizarre situation that DS2 (also year 1) is being given Phase 4 letter and sounds books by school, but is merrily reading Horrid Henry and The Worst Witch.

My Y1 was on gold band before half term, but her school have just started using RWI (i'm really impressed with it so far) and she's on the blue stage, which I think is equivelant to purple.
I was a bit miffed initially, but it's actually done her wonders, she was a good reader already, but she's improving loads, she's reading with better intonation and fluency.

Book bands aren't everything and it's not just about being able to read the text, it's about really understanding what they're reading and why certain words have been used etc etc

I do think we as parents do tend to get a bit hung up on book bands!

@FurryGiraffe my daughter's school does this too. Makes the school books a bit pointless as she is reading eg the wishing chair at home. She was stuck on turquoise for the whole of year 1 (they didn't assess her once). So I stopped caring about it too much and just make sure she has lots to read at home.

Ive just realised it's actually band 3!
And dc had this same book last jun so 9m ago.
So ive written im not reading anymore school books with dc and will use our own.
We actually have the set.
So i got dc to read the band 6 book a whole one and a half. (Theyre very short).

Not sure how parents evening will go now. But cant be expected to read same book 6 times!
Theyre just A-Z i think so no where near matched to the phonics.
Whereas the b6 book was something new at least. And one i saw a classmate with. (It's not a competition and i dont care how others are doing as i have an idea from other kids but we're getting behind because theyre not giving correct books.
How would we be able to meet expectations if we are 'the same' as last year!
We've definitely made a lot of progress in the last month.

The messing about i mean sounding out rather than reading, maybe distracting (she does that at home). But still we read the b6 book in less than 10 min.
Dc is just very literal didnt see that find sounds enough like the word.
She expected the word Mr so was thrown by Sir and didnt get that ear can be said ir/er sometimes.
Which is i think the issue wirh some sight words vs split digraphs
So
Gave (g - ae-v)
Have (h-a-v)
Shone (sh-o-n)
Phone (ph-oe-n)

Even
Passed (when we say with r she didnt recognise the word lol)

Never had any of these issues with eldest as dc1 memory meant they remembered it and they didnt question the logic.
Even
My (m- igh) i think because y can make an ee sound in some words
Me (m-ee)

I told her the word was find about 5 times before she got it(and maybe she will have forgotten tomorrow?)

Do you mean she's still sounding out as she reads? That will be why she's not moved on then, they have to be fluently reading before they can move up. That's what our teachers have said anyway.

It sounds like he's not yet comfortable with many alternative sounds. He's obviously using phonics very rigidly, which is standard at blue level but really not at purple level.

The examples you've given are all completely phonetically decodeable and should be taught as such.

Phone - split digraph o_e making it's most common sound.
Shone - split digraph o_e making a far less common sound: shone, gone

My - this is the most predictable spelling. In a single syllable word, y says "igh" - fly, try, by, shy. It only says "ee" as a second syllable - happy, shiny.

Your child seems to be at the stage of wanting to stick rigidly to the phonic rules he's learning. Which is fine. Using mixed methods (ie. Not following phonics only) at this stage may actually delay his reading progress longer term.

What does seem odd is the discrepancy between his band from school and his abilities. I would suggest you ask the teacher what he's currently learning in phonics and request a reassessment to see if he's ready to be moved forwards - his book band will (or certainly should) be linked to his phonics learning, or phonics group if children are grouped.

Is the issue here about phonics teaching? There is guidance now that reading books must match what a child is able to decode, which makes sense in itself. But my DC's school is interpreting this as 'books must match the phonics we have taught in class'. This is way below the level of DS2's reading, which means we're in the bizarre situation that DS2 (also year 1) is being given Phase 4 letter and sounds books by school, but is merrily reading Horrid Henry and The Worst Witch.

We have this problem.

I think schools are making excuses! It's much easier for them to manage if most of the class are basically all at the same level, so they are choosing to interpret the guidance this way.

It's easy enough to send harder books that match a childs decoding ability. You just assess their decoding ability and send home suitable books.