RWI in reception

[Kathryn1983]

I'm confused by the schools reading scheme and where my child is doing on it
the internet isn't helping massively as the "expected levels" seem to hugely differ from school to school

we are on read wrote inc

my daughter is an august baby so younger in the year group

she is currently (just returned from Easter) still on the red series of books (but has had a huge mix of books home songbirds, biff and kipper, RWI etc) so it's hard to tell what is going on.

one school indicated they should aim for green by end of reception maybe moving to purple

but another school indicated they should be on pink by the end of the year
another only indicated green
that's a huge difference surely that can't then fit with having a national curriculum can it!?

teachers out there is there genuinely as much difference in speed as above for schools to have as targets for progression here? (I am talking while school targets here not individual children- I totally get individual children moving at their own pace!)

I think my daughter is doing fine and I'm not concerned per se but I do want her to fulfill her potential. Not being held back either by having a school on the slower track as it where? For context her school do have vertical streaming with a reception class
a mixed older reception / younger year 1
then a year 1.

For the most part she is happy and confident with her reading , enjoys it and chooses to read most days to us and I'm very impressed with her spelling (because mine is awful 🤪) and writing is good

we've had no green books yet and I genuinely can't see her getting through them by the end of summer term given the tendancy for them to flip flop from one book series to another each week so we end up doing 25 books to move on not 10.

I think she's getting a wee bit bored of some of these red ditty stories now to be fair

we have parents evening soon how would you approach this ?

don't get me wrong the school is lovely
they are heard 2x a week reading which is great I think
learn welsh
learn maths
practical skills etc
do lots of spelling and writing and such
so I'm not complaining I'm just confused

is she fairly far behind her peers maybe and they're scrabbling round getting more red ditty level books for her to keep her motivated?

are they just a school with lower targets so they take their time more?

RWI is really good but lots of schools have dropped it as it's no longer the fashionable thing. Can't help with levels as it's been an age since I taught it but I'm sure it will be fine.

Thanks I'm surprised as my mums a teacher and her school do it too having done jolly phonics previously

what is the fashionable thing now then?

thought this was flavour of the month 🤣

Red level now in eyfs is on track so she is right where she should be! The biggest challenge our children have in moving from red to green is being able to read 4 sound words rather than the three in red level - words like sand bend etc just keep practicing her reading with her and try not to compare to others! RWI is absolutely not "out of fashion" it's synthetic phonics so similar to most other programmes!

PP is correct- red is perfectly on track and she should move to green by the end of reception (these are RWI's expected standards).
Red group will focus on learning to use all the set 1 sounds in 3, 4 and 5 sound words. The children often really struggle with 5 sound words as they forget the first sounds when they blend.

Ah thanks both
she has no trouble with the 4 letter words so far blends them lovely has done for a few weeks
she even blended sister when we read (together ) the highway rat with her jumping in on words she felt she could

she still occasionally gets b and d muddled but my mum said that's normal

her comprehension is great too and I love that they do that too now as that was missing when I learned many moons ago 🫣

we have a load of old bond books and she reads them no trouble red level so far

just thought it was weird there was such a bit difference in expectations from school to school reading expectations using the same scheme

Can’t believe schools are choosing another scheme if they already have RWI in place. Schemes with all the required books cost a fortune.

@Kathryn1983 I am surprised they are sending non RWI books home as well, thought you were only meant to have reading books from the scheme, especially early on

We get the RWI and jelly and bean and songbird ones
figure they just wanted to have more options for the children who stay on each level longer
which makes me think is my daughter also on the slower side hence getting a few random books perhaps

They should be off RWI by the end of year 2 at the latest

Red is normal for reception, some kids may still be on ditty sheetswhch come before red. Usually fhey should do an assessment at the end of each half term and move up to next level as appropriate

They've definitely done some assessments
I'm just mainly happy she's enjoying it and school itself