Little Wandle/Big Cat

[indiesearcher]

Hello,

I'm hoping to find a bit more information about the reading levels for Collins Big Cat reading books specifically in the Little Wandle scheme. This is the new schools reading scheme and there's no information available online about rough reading levels/ages.

I know they all develop differently etc etc but just keen to have a broad idea if DD is where she should be for her age.

TIA!

Why does it matter?

If you really want to know if your child is working towards/expected/or greater depth just ask the teacher or look online for what they have to do to be expexted for their age.

DD regularly has Big Cat reading books, hers are book banded? If you Google book bands by year there are plenty of charts, I find this one rhinoreads.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/teaching-your-child-to-read-book-bands-reading-schemes-and-early-readers/ quite helpful in showing how big the range can be.

This one covers Bug Cat explicitly, it looks the colours do vary a bit more later on www.bisleybluecoatcofeprimary.co.uk/learning_with_us/curriculum/english/reading_schemes/reading_schemes.html

The little wandle books that we have ordered are split into the phonics phases. So don’t correlate exactly to book bands.

Sorry, I hadn't realised the Little Wandle big cat ones were different. A quick google has found a spreadsheet on the Little Wandle website which lists Little Wandle Big cat books with both Little Wandle phase and also book band <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Big-Cat-Little-Wandle-mapping-chart-external.xlsx&ved=2ahUKEwjOuYqk8L72AhVTXsAKHWr7ADsQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0JeJjYKRX_mjr1DUze3qBU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Big-Cat-Little-Wandle-mapping-chart-external.xlsx&ved=2ahUKEwjOuYqk8L72AhVTXsAKHWr7ADsQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0JeJjYKRX_mjr1DUze3qBU

If you find the book band on this for a few recent books your DC has brought home and then look at book band per year group expectations it'll give you that broad idea of how she is doing for her age.

Thanks @CrabbyCat

They don't seem to correlate to the usual book bands, so that's what I'd been looking for, thank you.

Hmmm but that link isn't working for me. Can't seem to find anything in Little Wandle site that a parent can access that explains the levels.

When I Google 'little Wandle big cat book bands', it's the first link that comes up for me, titled 'sheet 1'.

I'll paste the link again in case it works this time, it downloads an excel spreadsheet

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Big-Cat-Little-Wandle-mapping-chart-external.xlsx&ved=2ahUKEwiAh8rLhr_2AhULilwKHU02BX4QFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0JeJjYKRX_mjr1DUze3qBU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Big-Cat-Little-Wandle-mapping-chart-external.xlsx&ved=2ahUKEwiAh8rLhr_2AhULilwKHU02BX4QFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0JeJjYKRX_mjr1DUze3qBU

Essentially phase 2 books are either pink or red book band, phase 3 are red, phase 4 are yellow or blue, and phase 5 are either green, orange or turquoise.

@CrabbyCat thanks ever so much!

If you go here www.pandorabooks.co.uk/big-cat-little-wandle-complete-pack-1-5 you can see which books are in which phase (I know the books also say this anyway), but from what we’ve had at home I think it’s fairly safe to say they are ordered in increasing difficulty within the bands too.

My DS is currently reading at the hardest end of Phase 2 (summer born reception) which probably equates to the easier end of red books using the list someone linked earlier.

I too don’t really like the uncertainty of this being a new scheme not directly comparable with the old book bands as it’s harder to choose what books to read together at home of a similar level. I’m not too much of a fan of the idea of reading a book three times before it even comes home, as my son just remembers the (very limited) words by wrote rather than reading them - I think the opportunity to read similar words in different orders is important to him in actually learning so I’m trying to supplement with similar level books at home.

The old book banding system is organised by criteria matched to the 3 cueing method not to phonics and is pretty meaningless. This system judges the level of difficulties based on how many letters per word, how many words per page, how many lines per page, how many pages per book not on reading progression.

@Newnamemsz

The old book banding system is organised by criteria matched to the 3 cueing method not to phonics and is pretty meaningless. This system judges the level of difficulties based on how many letters per word, how many words per page, how many lines per page, how many pages per book not on reading progression.

Can you expand on this?

I’m “just” a parent, but books like Songbirds Phonics definitely seem to follow a phonetic difficulty progression through the bands.

I’d agree with Biff, Chip and Kipper era books just being less words, some of the words in even the easiest bands of these books aren’t easy at all!

Songbirds were written to match a phonics progression but like many of the older phonic books they were also roughly placed in book bands by publishers

Big Cat Little wandle books are linked directly to the phonics progression of sounds and tricky words taught. Children on track should be secure with phase 4 (be able to read single letter sounds and phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs, words with constant blends ie frog, splash or brain as well as words with 3-4 syllables).

The school I teach at swapped to little wandle at the start of the year and we've had to reorganise, give away and purchase new books. Our children are expected to be on phase 4 books (formerly yellow and blue)

Little Wandle is only Letters and Sounds repackaged after the DfE admitted the original version wasn't fit for purpose so most of the phonic books written to match Letters and Sounds should be suitable.

Many thanks @inthewest - is that in year 1?

In Y1 they should be on phase 5 although due to Covid they may still be phase 4

Thanks everyone she has just been moved up to phase5, so looks like she's on track.

Sorry to jump on this thread months later but my DS is using this reading programme also and has been reading the phase 5 books since yr 1...now yr2...is the next stage the 7+books? That's all I can see when googling. Do the sets get progressively more challenging e.g. set 1 vs set 3? Thanks

As far as I can see, the 7+ books look to just be the same phases but aimed at older kids (ie more age appropriate content for kids with a lower reading age than their age).

We’re in Y1 now and the progression is just so slow! I’ve looked at some of the phase 5 samples and we can read them easily already!

I also feel the progress to the next level is really drawn out! He's pretty fluent now in the phase 5 so just waiting to see whether these 7+ books are offered next or something else more challenging. In the meantime, reading a variety of other books is widening his exposure to new words so that can only be a good thing I guess! Wish it wasn't so mysterious though!

It doesn’t help that this scheme is new so there’s no historic discussion of levels etc.

I did find this: harpercollins.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/EMEU-UK-London-Collins/EYyOtG1giY5HpuhkLV-r3ygB5WOzwCMqBLamA_4EcRq-yQ?rtime=APwowK2g2kg

It maps the Little Wandle books to the old reading bands which gave me some assurance all is going ok. The progress in the phases seems much more regimented, so I think we’ll be “stuck” on stage 4 for quite a while….

Interestingly, we’ve just had a book home that is “not decodable at any point using Little Wandle” according to this spreadsheet, but the book is branded as Phase 4 Little Wandle!

Ad an observation, the blue band books we’ve had home do seem very short compared to some of the other reading schemes. I think a lot of the Little Wandle books are just the old Big Cat books slotted into the new system.

Thanks for sharing. We've also had a phase 5 book that's “not decodable at any point using Little Wandle”!. We have a parents evening next month so think I'll ask teacher more then. Hopefully with time it will all make more sense!

Keep me in the loop if you gather any more info - I’d love to know more about the potential direction of Y2!