End of reception reading level

[Cleosinsttropez]

Hello!

My son finished reception on Oxford Reading Tree level 7/Turquoise reading band. We’ve continued reading with him over the holidays and have worked our way through the library’s turquoise collection.

I was googling to see what the next level is so I could buy him some books when I came across the attached reading guide. I was quite surprised to see turquoise band is the level for the end of year 1.

I was wondering how accurate this guide is? Trying to establish if the chart is about right or, in practice, most children go beyond this and it’s a base level?

For context, my son turned 5 a few days ago, he’s one of the youngest in his year. He is at a private school where they read with them individually 4 times a week, we read with him too. His report was excellent but there were no comments specific to reading other than he’s coming along well.

I am friendly with other parents but I don’t particularly want to message them to ask what reading level their kids are on, I don’t want to come across a competitive parent but I’m just interested to try and gauge his level, especially compared to his autumn/winter born peers, if he is actually quite far ahead, or if this is relatively standard.

Would appreciate if any teachers had any input or how this tallies with your reception/year 1 age child.

Many thanks 😊

@SamPoodle123 yeah judging by this thread it seems free reading at that age is quite common, is that quite skewed in your experience then? I suppose people are more likely to be willing to discuss advanced readers… but there’s also a teacher saying she gets free readers from reception and expects it by the end of year 1! (Though others have said the table is about right) I’ve no experience and this is my first and only.

@Calliopespa yes I remember this from my own primary school experience. There was one girl who was a “brain box” and always way ahead, something happened around year 4- I suppose we all caught up, when suddenly she wasn’t top in everything. Even as a 9 year old I could see she lost much of her confidence, she wasn’t used to being average. I’d also feel bad for any 4/5/6/7 year old being hot housed, they’re so little! My son’s school is non selective and doesn’t prep for the 7+, I imagine schools that do probably push for early success as it’s better for their 7+ stats.

@Pearlstillsinging ”the books sent home are from all over place but the school have banded them in line with the ORT, but it means some of the books will say purple- the school have assessed as a bit easier so will have categorised it as turquoise. It means there’s a lot of variety in the books coming home at least” I’ve copied that from upthread- the school follow the banding but the books come from a variety of schemes and I’d say 1 in every 30 books sent home is Biff. Thanks for the suggestion, my son already loves Not Now Bernard. We are regulars at the library and have bookshelves of fun books, if you read my other posts you’ll see we don’t just do banded reading

My experience was the only one free reader after year 1. At least that was the only parent that talked about it. It was a close friend of my dc though and later the dc struggled in school and seemed to have peaked in that year 2 when the dc was a free reader. I am not sure what happened. But they struggled with math and English later. My experience with my own dc is that it did not matter their reading level early on. We spent time in the park playing with friends. I did not feel a rush or urgency. They managed to figure things out and progress on their own. Now in secondary they are thriving in their academic schools. I did read to them a lot though when they were little (before they could read).

@SamPoodle123 thank you! I think what I’ve taken from this is as you say, it doesn’t matter! Just keep reading for fun :)

@Calliopespa Yes I do agree. It’s much better to get a child to be at home with books and enjoy breadth. Dc can choose books on topics that interest them, and you share them. Not doing a reading scheme is a release! Breath of literature is really important. My DDs liked poetry for example. It’s often a vivid description of something and even if dc cannot read it, they build up vocabulary.

Yes I totally agree: it's very often the 7 plus pressure that creates the problems. And it can really damage their confidence and whole sense of identity I think.

Poetry is fabulous for dc I think.

It varies hugely. My first daughter started reception on orange and was on turquoise by Christmas and was a free reader halfway through year one. She's at a super selective grammar now. My second child was only on red at the end of reception and the teacher wasn't concerned. State school.

My daughter also ended reception on turquoise but I think there is a huge range of normal within these bandings. There was one other kid ahead of her on the next band, maybe one more kid on turquoise, some kids still on the picture books with no words. And a lot at the various bands in between. We're at a state primary where they place a lot of emphasis on reading and phonics, not sure how it compares to private as I've no experience at all of that.