Moving book bands

[vera16]

My reception DC has been on the same book band Pink 1B since the start of term. At first it was a challenge as it contained some sounds he didn't know yet but now he can decode all of the words and is finding it all a bit boring. Or maybe that's just me. I'm wondering how it is decided to move up a band? When there is a degree of fluency or is it all just about decoding?

Sometimes they just get to the end of the band before moving.

My advice as a parent of much older kids is don't worry about school books just read as much as possible at home. School books are pretty dull!

Bands are honestly pretty pointless. Just go to the library and pick some that look about right. The best thing you can do is to read often and varying stuff.

Agree school banding is boring and not worth worrying about. Choose books at home that are interesting and challenging. You don't need a label to know where your DC is at.

Teachers often prefer to keep children within their comfort zone with reading books deliberately to post their confidence. We read most nights so use additional books.

I got so stressed about book bands. He will be able to read. A love of reading will come from what your do at home not school.

From pink to red my experience was it's mostly about the decoding, fluency became more of a consideration at yellow / blue. The range of sounds used in pink is very limited, so it's a pretty limited vocabulary you could build fluency in! Some of the series we have had pink A and B but afraid I can't remember the difference, a lot of them just do pink. Higher up it becomes mostly about the comprehension. School may also have a policy about how often they reassess the children, so it may just be a timing rather than readiness question.

Our library has a huge selection of book banded books, does yours? If they do, I'd just get some red book band books out the library and have a go.

At higher levels I just went with what looked right, but I found book bands helpful at the very early stages, when what they can read is so limited.

We ignored the bands and went off piste at home. Dd started in year 1 (moved from overseas) and I told them she could read - they insisted on sending ridiculously easy books with only a few words on each page which annoyed dd. Eventually after half term I met the teacher after school with dd and had one of her dick King smith books (chapter) - asked dd to read to the teacher, they changed her books to ability appropriate l!

Dd2 was harder to teach but she still went at 5 x the pace of the teacher, I bought the usbourne phonics readers

Thanks all. Will go and check out what the library has to offer. Or look at getting a set on eBay.