Is this normal - reading book band

[Toarrie]

DS in reception is only reading book band level 1 books. He seems to be in the bottom reading group, which is concerning. I don’t recall his sister ever getting level 1 books home.
Is it still within the realms of normal to be on level 1 at this stage or is he quite behind?

I have no idea what you mean by 'level 1 books', as every scheme is different. Do you mean wordless books? How do you know what 'group' he's in. Many don't do guided reading groups in Reception anymore, it's an outdated approach.

Book bands are outdated now too. I don't know how old your other child is but early reading has changed a lot in recent years. Schools have to send home books which match the phonics unit they're currently learning in school or below (most schools will send home books one unit below what they're working on in school, to reinforce and practice). They shouldn't have books with words they can't decode yet (such ad the old Biff, Chip and Kipper books).

It could be that he's struggling, but we can't say for sure on that information alone. That's a conversation to have with his teacher. Even if he is it's not overly concerning at this stage.

It's still very early days in Reception. Children will 'click' at different times with phoneme recognition and blending.

@BoleynMemories13 This is really interesting- it is very different from my DD's school's approach. Independent school.

She is in Y1 and is still following the book bands and, like lots of her class, gets moved up book bands (Oxford Reading Tree) based on assessment by her teacher.

She is reads at level above the phonics taught but seems to be reading really well. Starting to read early chapter books.

I am assuming that you are a teacher, and wondered if you feel that the new approach you describe gets better outcomes? Better outcomes for all children across the spectrum of abilitites? Better outcomes for children who get on well with reading?

Thanks

At first I was resistant to the decodable readers only approach, as there's so much more to reading than decoding words. Using picture clues is such a useful skill to have.

However, on reflection I do see the logic now for brand new readers. Whilst a 4 year old may have been able to work out the word 'bike', based on the illustrations, in the sentence 'Look at me on my bike' (good old Biff and Chip), they don't really look at the word to engage with it, they definitely won't remember it in a different book. It's a skill, but not necessarily a 'reading' skill.

The old Oxford Reading Tree books would throw in so many random words that parents would have to take over at times, telling their child what the word is because they have no chance of working it out yet, based on the phonics code taught to this point. For example, the word 'look' in my example sentence. That book was level 1+, 'pink band'. Children will not have been introduced to the oo sound yet, and the word can't be worked out through looking at the pictures (unlike 'bike'). Therefore, in order to be successful, they need an adult to tell them the word (which they probably won't even look at, let alone remember on the next page).