Year 1 reading levels / book bands

[Parkrunmum10]

Can someone who teaches explain what the level book bands year 1 should aim for

to put this into context our daughter is apparently in the 5th group of 9 in her year - so 4 groups are working at a lower level. This is fine she is a clever and able imo child who is august birthday and therefore lacks some focus so balances out her ability to make a vaguely average child for the year. All good / expected.

however her group is still only reading book band red level 2 books. Occasionally a yellow level 3. The books have progressed in complexity from last year but the book band has been the exact same since before Easter in reception.

isnt this a bit behind where you'd expect your middle group to be towards the end of the first term of year 1?

from what I've seen online the target is to get them to yellow / band 3 at the end of reception : most seem to align with this progress target chart:
cdn.oxfordowl.co.uk/2019/07/19/13/52/18/160/OxfordLevelsAndBookBands.png

if she's behind that's fine she can catch up / progress at her own pace but I'm just trying to judge if she is a band behind the target for the year below why the school thing she is doing great and is middle of the pack - are this year group / cohort just a distribution a bit lower than normal or something or should I be concerned about the teaching / provision

also is it normal to stay on a book band for a full 2 terms at this level - I see all my friends kids in other schools moving bands / levels at least once a term - admittedly I don't know what scheme they all use but it seems to be a mixture

her school use the biff and kipper and biff and kipper floppy phonics ones but we have had the odd songbird and rwi one along the way 🫣🤣

the book bands line up with this: https://earleylearningsupport.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/9/6/28966585/oxfordreadingtree.pdf

It sounds like you’d be better off working on her focus issues so that she can show her teachers what she knows, and supplementing phonics at home. Ultimately if she cannot demonstrate her knowledge at school then you will have this issue again.

My child is able to read far past what they are sending at home but we simply read additional material together.

Yup it was covered in the monster books very early on with the ‘brown owl’ character! We have had a couple of ow books and she can now say any words with it in.

I really rate the books compared to the old scheme we used.

Yes it does sound like Wales have a slightly different system then

This link shows what stage covers what sounds, the year they would usually teach in it (and actually says the equivalent book band colour!)

monsterphonics.com/books/

I think there is a lot of confusion now with how book bands feed into the new phonics schemes. Our school is all about little wandle but is still sending home and old book band book for extra practice. I’ve found the book bands than are coming home are much lower banded than where my eldest was at the same point but the school aren’t really assessing by the book bands- it’s just extra practice.

Eldest was on blue at the end of reception and purple by the end of year 1 with pretty rapid movement up the levels. Youngest is just as good if not better but in y1 is on blue book band but reading other stuff at home that’s harder.

I say trust your Spidey senses.

I have a very average ds 😊
Our school is following rwi and I have to say it has been incredible - ds could literally only read the letter N when he started Reception, and now he is on Pink books (it doesn’t really line up with ORT so I won’t try to compare). He is enjoying reading and I can literally see the improvement every single day. School does one banding assessment per half term. DS moved up to new band along with his group. His group is second-to-bottom and so most of his class has flown on ahead but I’m fine with it because he is learning at a good pace and he’s making an effort to read all the time - signs, recipes, etc. I am a huge fan of rwi which I much prefer to ort.

The main thing I would snag on is: you say your dd is bored and your dd is not progressing … recapping is one thing, but if that means she’s stagnating and you don’t feel the pace is right then you should talk to the teacher. It’s not right to be treading water.

I had the same thing with my dd who was reading at home miles ahead of her book band at school. So frustrating.
Eventually school reassessed her again and all of a sudden she rattled through all the bands in no time and was free reading! Sometimes I think there’s one block on an assessment, it’s daft… they get held up. Dd really didn’t enjoy Biff and Kipper either.
If you get stuck like this at school, dc won’t be maximising learning in class but you can extend reading at home.

Thanks
they do RWI but don't follow it precisely so don't reassess as often and they don't move up bands as often because they don't use the books from the scheme

she is stagnating with phonics in my opinion but we've raised it several times all term and keep being told she is in the right group and will not be moving and that she is progressing all the time (not sure how she is progressing when she hasn't done a single new sound all term 🫣) so at this point I'm so sick of them not listening I've given up

they reassess in January but she can't move groups unless she knows the sounds the group above hers have done - which she can't because they haven't done them in her group yet so she is stuck

we just do as much reading at home that we can and my mum has been doing the phonics when she can with her to catch her up

We had this, DD was asked to explain what the story was about and she would do it in a few words when what they wanted was a re-telling (if you have just read a story to someone you expect that you don’t have to tell them more because they heard you read, so I sympathise with DD). It was a matter of her understanding what the actual question is, then she started moving up book bands quickly. But DD’s school basically switch books weekly so whenever they are individually ready they get moved up.

How often does a teacher hear her read?

I can't fault them on that score - they read 2 x a week to a teacher or ta
And we get 2 new books a week home
so some weeks she gets 4 books from school

now she's on the next batch of books they do seem to read them a couple of times so it's 2 books a week but again I'm fine with that as the books are long and relatively challenging

she still however is getting spellings she has had about 4 x now and she gets them right and I think she is really good at spelling as like reverse decoding

we just don't waste our time copying out the schools spellings now - we just do them 2x a week max and then focus on new sounds at home as she gets too frustrated with the spellings

My daughter ended Reception on Yellow but absolutely should have been on a higher book band.

We did lots of work over the summer and she moved to Orange book band at the start of Sept after assessments and has been on Turquoise since Nov. I would guess she will move to the next band at the end of Jan.

Red/Yellow is more about children knowing the tricky words and common exception words and learning how to read in a better flow.

Children move quickly from Blue to Green as they are much the same except reading stamina.

Orange and Turquoise are the bands they will stay on the longest. They fly after that as most of it is stamina in how long and fluently they can read. They will know most of the general words in stories and will only need to decode a small amount of unusual and infrequent words.

I really dislike how they do phonics in RWI and I would take out a Twinkle subscription for over the Christmas holidays..... Print out Phase 2,3 and 5 Sound mats and Phase 2,3,4 and 5 tricky words.

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-l-4351-phase-1-to-5-sound-mat-pack-letters-only

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/au-l-678-letters-and-sounds-phase-2-to-5-tricky-words-bookmarks

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-l-5155-new-year-1-common-exception-words

Make sure your child can say every "sound" as well as being able to say every tricky word and common exception word.

At the end of year 1, there is also an expectation that they can spell every Year 1 common exception word. Practice spelling them, writing them and saying them.

When my children were learning to read, I had these all printed and laminated and would go over them at breakfast and dinner.

https://amzn.eu/d/c6GEYWX

You could also buy this from Amazon. It helps children use their phonics to read different words. This will help them in their Phonics Screening Test in June.

Thanks
i actually like RWI just that my daughters school dont follow it properly
she still hasn't moved into a new book band at school but we are flying through at home and just use some key stage one books o bought
wales don't do any assessment at the end of year 1
al those things they should do "by end of year 1 " is based in England - wales get an extra year (end of year 2 ) rightly or wrongly i suppose to get there
she finally learned 2 new sounds at school this term in the last 2 weeks it's a joke now in our house
she had done them both at home and knew then well and got 100% on her spellings those weeks anyway
its put me off school in a big way
the mix class R and year 1 is disaster in my eyes and doesn't work and almost al the parents have the same complaint now a term in so somehow vindicated
if I had the money I'd move her to this amazing private school my partner works at
if I didn't have to work full time I'd 1000% home school