Y2 reading level

[donotenter]

DD is level 8 (purple), I've looked at the Oxford Reading Tree website and understand she's towards the lower end of year 2 level. A friend's DC, also Y2, in another school is apparently a free reader.

To those who's DCs are a free reader can you tell me whether they've gone all the way up to level 20 (Y6 level) or lower?

I'm sure it depends on the school, but curious to know if it's common to be a free reader in Y2. Thanks.

There seem lots in my dc2_class.

Dc2 is still on the scheme. Re the going up to y6 bands -- technically yes but school don't seem to acknowledge diff between line and dark blue dark red etc. So we got those books then back to lime!
Dc1 pre covid was free reader from Sept y2. But could read chapter books from end reception. Went up to lime and some treetops

Imo you need to be reading chapter books at home to get off the scheme.
The harder y6 books etc are actually pretty boring, so hard to get dc2 to read them.

Do the summer reading challenge and your dc will catch up over the summer.
And find out exactly how they did in the ks1 stats reading.

At our school there are some y1 off the scheme, 1 who was behind my dc for ages but it depends on which books they are given and whether they read with a teacher to assess.
Can your dc read a chapter book before bed for eg?

In my DS' y2 class there are kids all the way from red to copper. I don't know how far they go but based on the above obviously past the first 11 bands/past y2. They mostly seem to be around gold/white.

Getting off the scheme has not really been emphasised at his school - the focus just switches to comprehension. In fact the school moved most y2 dc down a band at the beginning of the year to account for a new focus on comprehension in their new approach.

I believe the teaching of phonics ends in Year 2, so effectively preparing each child to be able to read everything. However everyone is on their own path, so some ahead and some behind. I think that's why quite a few Year 2's and above are free readers because they have completed the phonics scheme. Most schools I've found will go up to Lime level 12, and then they are a free reader, but then some will continue on with reading levels longer until they have finished it (level 20).

Also some schools require a child to read every single book in a certain level before moving up a level, and other schools will move them up when they are ready, or even skip whole levels if they have progressed enough.

Our school goes up to Level 12 and then a free reader.

Thank you all for your input. Now I have a much clearer idea of what a free reader is.

DD is nowhere near reading chapter books yet (she prefers books with lots of pictures still) but will try and making reading a regular thing and hopefully she will catch up.

I don't want to make it competitive for her as I know she won't like it, but I do hope she'll grow to love reading.

Don't worry about this - levels at school do not correlate with enjoying reading. I was told the best way to encourage a love of reading is to read to your children, and this has proved true in my experience.

Books oike claude and isadora moon are chapter books with pictures

I believe the teaching of phonics ends in Year 2

It shouldn’t - phonics is on the curriculum all the way through KS2.

The curriculum expectation is that Y2 children are reading short novels by the end of KS1.

Oh I thought they covered all the sounds by the end of year 2 and then just worked on spelling rules and things after that! Perhaps they do it differently it other schools, but mine haven't done any phonics lessons past year 2.

I think that’s a varied massively from school to school. Dd is on brown (no idea what stage number that is), but is one of the better readers in the class. In her school they tend to stick with the bands in KS1 and then some move onto free reading from year 3 onwards. They definitely don’t do the bands all the way up to year 6. They have said that the older children don’t find the stories engaging enough so it’s a battle to get some of them to read and it doesn’t promote a love of reading which is really important. They’re often only reading because it’s homework and they have to. So they move on to free reading in juniors once they’re able to.

I teach a mixed year 1/2 class. All of my year 2’s are free readers and half of my year 1’s. Level 8 is the lowest level we expect children to leave Reception at.

If I was assessing your child I would put them at pre key stage. They are at a very low level. There’s no way they could have accessed the Sats comprehension paper on that level.

No it's not. Phonics is KS1 then in KS2 it's spelling rules from the Spelljng Appendix.

Oh the irony! *spelling appendix, obviously.

RE book bands OP, if a child comes into Y3 on about Turquoise or above, they will likely reach expected standard in Y6. The levels ORT publishes are not realistic IMO. Someone has argued with me on this on MN before but I've taught Y3 for about 10 years and that's my experience. When parents talk about their children being free readers, they mean above Lime. Many schools have bands going well beyond that.

Total rubbish - check the NC again. I’d go and copy and paste but I am 100% certain it’s there because I’ve had this discussion many, many times! Read it properly. KS2 spelling is supposed to be strongly phonics based throughout, taught alongside morphology and etymology.

It is not mentioned at all in the Spelling Appendix for LKS2.

In the English curriculum it says, "Pupils should spell words as accurately as possible using their phonic knowledge and other knowledge of spelling, such as morphology and etymology.
Most pupils will not need further direct teaching of word reading skills: they are able to decode unfamiliar words accurately, and need very few repeated experiences of this before the word is stored in such a way that they can read it without overt sound-blending. They should demonstrate understanding of figurative language, distinguish shades of meaning among related words and use age-appropriate, academic vocabulary." That does not mean daily phonics lessons like in KS1 and it would be unusual to call KS2 spelling session phonics. Obviously we still refer to phonics knowledge all the time, but as part of spelling or general English sessions, not as timetabled phonics sessions.

Oh god my child is only on green

Different schools define 'free reader' differently, and not all use the ORT colour order. DCs' school have their own colour order once off the phonics scheme, but a 'free reader' for us is reading at upper yr6 level and school won't award it before the start of yr3, regardless of ability. DD1's class had 6 of them awarded the level at the earliest opportunity (which due to covid delays, was later than usual, explaining the greater number), and I suspect there will be 3 in DD2's class when they start yr3 in September.
I agree with a PP that to earn the status so early, they have to be already reading above that level at home for some time to gain the required vocabulary and ability. Part of the assessment for us is reading 5 pages of a book that is a yr6 level with 98+% fluency. These are chapter books with fairly dense text and no pictures, with a word count of around 300/page. I help assessing readers at my DCs' school, and the last time I was assessing at that level (with yr6 pupils who are the last in their class to achieve the level), the selected text included words such as 'dilapidated' and 'encyclopaedic'. Both tripped up most, despite being decode-able with a little tweaking, and even those who read them correctly couldn't tell me what they meant. Their comprehension also needs to match their fluency, so not knowing the definition of the odd word is fine, but they need to be able to pick up on the more subtle inferences and explain the subtext.

English Appendix 1:

"Phonic knowledge should continue to underpin spelling after key stage 1; teachers should still draw pupils’ attention to GPCs that do and do not fit in with what has been taught so far"

Look up 'underpin'. Look up the Science of Spelling. The NC (and research around spelling) point to a bit more than the passing reference to phonics that you're suggesting. And to suggest that other schools don't teach phonics past Y2 is silly - what about schools who use Spelling Shed, for example?

Then we come to specific objectives - straight away in Y3 it states the GPCs you are supposed to be teaching. Just the first page!

Fair enough with the references but I stand by the fact most schools don't call that phonics - or not the schools I have worked in or worked closely with anyway. It has never been an issue with Ofsted that we call these lessons Spelling. I have been quite clear about the fact I discretely teach spelling (I hardly ignore all those objectives!) so not sure why you're referencing Spelling Shed etc - we use it weekly. I'm also not sure this helps the OP. Her children's school likely calls KS2 teaching 'Spelling' not 'Phonics'. As long as they are covering the objectives, it doesn't matter. The children in my school come in well below national average and leave above it. Something is working.

I think it depends on the school/teacher. My son is Y2 and is Sapphire which I think translates as Level 14/Dark Blue which apparently is Y5 level. He's a very keen reader and I would consider him a 'free reader' in that he can pick up pretty much any book and read it. However, his teacher won't declare him a free reader until the end of the year. Other classes in his year have free readers in but his teacher seems to prefer to stick to where they 'should' be rather than are (if that makes sense!).

It was a bit annoying as at the beginning of the year they gave him very easy books as they said he wasn't meant to be at a higher level yet. This meant he got very bored of the books & didn't want to read them so we ended up reading our own books most of the time.

That's absolutely normal for Y1 and Y2. Purple/level 8 at the end of Reception as a standard is ludicrous. This image shows the actual normal range for book bands under the bug club scheme. There is a pretty big range of normal.

It's not helpful to tell parents on a forum that phonics stops at the end of KS2 when that isn't the case. It doesn't matter what it's called, it doesn't stop!

Okay. To me, phonics broadly speaking is the bought-in, structured scheme that all schools have had to put in place in KS1, with daily sessions that include lots of repetition and move through the phonics phases. I believe that's what most people understand by phonics, especially as all the phases should all be covered for most children in KS1. To me, teaching 'y to an i' or 'cian is an alternative tion spelling usually on job words' isn't phonics, it's spelling. I appreciate your professional opinion is different.

However, my 'opinion' matches the information in the national curriculum. I think it's really important to be factually correct when posting on a parenting forum. Phonic knowledge must underpin spelling teaching. It's more helpful to parents to be explicit about that. Throwaway phrase about phonics stopping afetr KS1 are not true or helpful and muddy the waters considerably!

Haha I thought you'd say that. Fair enough.

DD (year 2) became a free reader in January (finished on white); I think she was one of the first. I imagine perhaps 1/2 to 3/4 of the class are now free readers.