Yr5 - Massive fall in AR reading level - what do i do?

[JFHARTRR]

In July at end of Yr4 DS was at a 6.1 AR level and getting 9/10 or 10/10 on the book comprehension tests.
His recent star test has given a 4.0 level, despite reading 4 books across the summer holidays . This was the level he was at in October of Yr3.

The teacher says he should only read at his new level to "rebuild foundational skills" and if he does this then she is sure he will be back to his old level soon.
However, he is devastated with the new rating. He's said there's no point in even trying any longer as he's never going to get better no matter what he does and refuses to even pick up a book which "little kids" are reading.
The background information is that DS is dyslexic. His reading progress so far has been really hard fought. He hates reading with a passion, but in the last year finding book series like Skandar, Loki, and the Breakfast clubs (as well as Tom Gates previously) has given him a new found tolerance for books. It was actually nice this summer to see him voluntarily pick up a book and enjoy reading. It is quite upsetting to see his spirit so broken.
The one upside is that other boys saw similar falls, although from higher ratings and without the underlying issues.

Any ideas how I should approach this one?

It’s normal for ratings to fall over the summer holidays.

as you say the others have also seen falls.

try to find a new series he likes? They do do a lot of reading at school as part of the lessons which helps push fluency up.

AR is absolutely dire imo. It does nothing at all to encourage a love of reading and your situation is illustrative of it. It discourages kids from reading books that appeal to them and promotes tediously easy ones instead. Let him read what he wants at home and encourage the school to drop AR (former literacy lead, who ditched it).

AR is variable - at school our kids' ZPD range and reading ages go up and down (sometimes quite significantly). Teacher can offer retake if they feel it's not a good representation of that child.

Can you badge it as home reading is different from school reading? So at school he can stick to the AR book, plus homework reading, but also find something he can read for pleasure. At our primary they can take 2 books one is their AR and one is for interest. Just some ideas for finding things, our primary have stuck these London underground style maps into the reading diaries that are quite good for suggestions, if you like a particular style of book you can stay on that line, or branch out. Might be worth looking that up for suggestions. Also things like The Phoenix magazine and the Week junior have been big hits here and are in an accessible style. Good luck, such a shame he's had this knock.

I would say try anything that works to get him interested again like for example comics or graphic novels that are his level.There was a series of books by Joseph Delaney that are referred to as the spooks books and I read them together with my son from around the age of 9/10.He hated reading although he was good so we took turns and read a page each until his confidence got better and then he used to read a chapter.He loved the series and there were around 15 books and they got harder as they went along and we didn't finish the series until he was around 12/13.He read them with me until the series finished and then went on to read himself through choice.
I think if you take the pressure off and find something he enjoys that might help.

During term time he'll be reading daily i assume. 4 books over the summer might not have been enough to keep him at that standard so he's dropped off a bit, including probably his skill at answering the comprehension questions, as they're a separate skill in theirselves.

I'd work on bolstering resilience a bit, it's not the end of the world and his worth isn't measured by a reading score.

@JFHARTRR
As a mum with a child with very similar needs, and having had two children leave primary school with one still there, I really don’t think children need to be told the actual levels and scores like this. Our school doesn’t grade the children in this way either, and I can completely understand why, because it can be incredibly upsetting for them. They don’t understand all the context behind a score — they just hear “you’ve gone backwards” or “you’re not as good as you were”, and for a child who has already had to fight so hard with reading, that can completely knock their confidence. It sounds like that’s exactly what has happened with your son, which is so sad because he’d finally started enjoying reading.
Personally, I wouldn’t make home reading another battle. If school are absolutely set on him reading books at this new level to “rebuild foundations”, then they can work through those with him at school. At home I would protect that newfound love of reading at all costs. Let him choose what he wants to read, follow his interests and keep reading the books that actually make him WANT to pick up a book.
My middle daughter is very similar. When her reading record came home with a book that was completely uninspiring to her, I just ignored it. We read something she actually wanted to read instead, and I wrote in the reading record what we had actually read and how she got on. Ultimately, I wanted her reading and enjoying it, not sitting there miserable because she’d been given a particular book.
I would definitely go back to school and explain the impact this has had on him. Make it clear just how hard-fought his progress has been and that, after finally getting him voluntarily reading and enjoying books, you don’t want to undo that by making reading feel like a punishment or making him believe he has somehow failed.
And I think sometimes as mums we need reminding that we are our children’s voices and advocates. Just because a school says something, or an individual teacher has an opinion about what is best, doesn’t automatically mean it is right for your child. You know your child, you know how hard you’ve worked to get him to this point, and you’re absolutely allowed to question an approach when you can see it is having a negative effect on him.
They can work on any genuine gaps they’ve identified at school without taking away the books he loves at home. If those books are his gateway into reading, I’d keep that gateway wide open. ❤️

Let him read what he wants at home, first post nails it, AR is awful. Reading for pleasure is a key factor in social mobility and AR kills it. Many children's reading levels take a hit over summer, it will recover, normalise reading for him, I suggest you start reading to him, then leave it on a cliff hanger...... (evil but will make him pick up books again!), I suggest the Nevermore books by Jessica townsend and the Onyeka series both are great (you'll enjoy them as well)

My daughter is dyslexic and completely lost her passion for reading after being ground down by being forced to read those God awful school reading scheme books! What are they doing in school to support his dyslexia?

If you're looking for resources to support him yourself then Barrington stokes publish dyslexia friendly books and Nessy is a great online resource for helping children with dyslexia.

What targeted help is he getting for his dyslexia?

Take him to the library, get some professional book advice, lol, bound to be something to grab his attention. Sometimes it's the 'way' it's written can make it feel older. The Hardy Boys is on Disney+, I read them when I was quite young.

My brother has severe dyslexia and had a simiilar event in Y5 (many years ago). Ultimately they worked out that he’d been using visual recall by memorising the look of individual words, rather than decoding them in the way others would. When his vocabulary and complexity of books he was reading expanded he hit a point that he simply couldn’t hold that many words in his head, and his reading ability appeared to collapse - he went backwards quickly. Ultimately, his dyslexia has meant he mostly accesses the written word aurally - audio books, screen readers etc. using these techniques he has succeeded at school, university and had a very successful career. First time ever posting but I wanted to share because our family’s experience was so close to yours.

AR (and school) killed my son’s love of reading. He had stealth dyslexia - unknown to us at the time. He went from reading warhorse (and all the other Michael morpurgo book in the same vein) in year 4 (home books but school allowed him to bring them to school) to being given a peppa pig book in year 5 when he moved to middle school! He could tell you what happened, what people may have been feeling etc in war horse so he understood what he was reading - but when it came to the online quiz for AR books - the wheels fell off. He was diagnosed a year later with stealth dyslexia and told those quizzes were not appropriate for someone with dyslexia - but by then he hated reading of any kind. We tried to get him back to his love of reading but now year 9 and feels the same. I don’t know about your school but the dyslexia support was next to nothing - despite having an EHCP.

Did you actually listen to him reading the books over the summer? Do you know he was reading them and not just looking at them. As a TA I’ve seen many parents who sign reading records and don’t listen to their children, but then insist they read at a more advanced stage than they do. Yes scheme books are beyond dull, but they’re designed to slowly build each area of reading in order for children to get to free reading for life. I second whoever recommended non-fiction for boys, both my DS love the football rules books as well.

Honestly, school books can be extremely tedious. As soon as my children got to year 2 and could read with some fluency, we stopped reading school books at home and switched to books they picked for themselves. My kids find zero enjoyment in reading, so it was already a struggle. Forcing them to read the boring school books was only solidifying their hatred. I spoke with the school about not wanting this to end in a battle and they agreed that the school books could be for school only and they can chose what they want to read at home, as long as I sit and listen/question to make sure they are actually comprehending what they're reading. I'd try to encourage this at home too, the end goal is that they can read fluently and have good comprehension, this can be done with any book really. Support your child how you think is best.

I’m sorry his spirit has been broken, that’s so sad after all his work to get up there to that level.

I would focus on getting him to read something he might (at least somewhat) enjoy at home that’s nothing to do with the levels. Comic book styles like Dog Man or Captain Underpants that are funny and very low pressure for actual reading, could be a good start. I’d also recommend the 13 story Treehouse series and anything by Pamela Butchart once he’s back in the swing of it to build up the amount of actual reading.

I am a literacy specialist. I hate seeing AR used this dogmatically. Let him read what he wants at home and tell his teacher that this is what he will be doing.

Tracking an enjoyable text along with the audiobook or a fluent adult reader is one of the most effective ways to get his fluency and confidence back on track.

My daughter is an incredibly capable reader, but her score fell significantly a couple of years ago because she was told not to guess at any answers on the STAR quiz.
Her ND little brain took that to mean that if she wasn’t 100% certain about an answer, she couldn’t answer the question. Once we had a conversation about educated guesses being OK, she improved. It might be worth checking with him that nothing like that has happened.

This. I’m horrified by it.

I would get your child to do the absolute minimum of their school reading books and get them reading for pleasure books that are actually fun. I teach my kids sometimes we play the system but we don’t have to think it actually matters.

In the school I work in, there are books we read for pleasure (and it’s not constrained by which ZPD you are) and books for AR.

There is pressure to show data in schools which is why our literacy lead went for AR. Children don’t need to just read for pleasure, they need to comprehend what they have read. Without that skill, they can find it affects their understanding in other subjects.

When I look back at my school days, we were reading Shakespeare and decoding it in English but for pleasure we were reading our nicked mum’s Jackie Collins novels!

My daughter’s school use this system, and she has just been introduced to it. I want to tear my hair out, the librarian wouldn’t let her have a book that was ‘too hard’ for her. She’d read the previous two in the trilogy at home! She is allowed to choose from books at an extremely narrow range - between 4.4 and 4.6 … How can this do anything but kill a child’s love of reading? The teachers gave a presentation to the parents about how the scheme ‘promotes reading for fun’ 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’m very sorry, I am planning to just promote what I can outside of school. I told my daughter if there is a book they won’t let her have I will source it for her

Ignore her. Children advance their reading by reading what they enjoy, and reading books that challenge them (are a bit hard). Plenty of research coming out saying this and disproving the stupid ‘don’t go beyond your level’ approach (although ‘research’ rather than common sense is to what has led us here in the first place). I basically told DS school this in year 4 and, to their credit, they said to send in our own books for him to read in his recorded reading time.

I would say he probably got distracted during the star test. We never drop kids like that though. If they've had a 6.1 for example, then they stay reading at that level even if their next test drops them down. I'd politely ask the teacher if he could retake the test and continue to read at his old level in the meantime.

Star reader is a snapshot of how he did at that particular moment in time. As the teacher I'd be looking at how long it took. Did he rush through? Did he guess at questions he didn't know instead of them timing out (or if that's something he's always done he could have previously guessed correctly and ended up with a hire ZPD).

I'm confused though by how you say his level was 6.1 it should be a range e.g. 4.3 - 6.1.

Just let him read whatever he wants at home

I have no idea if this is helpful, but I have a Y4 and I have never heard of AR or reading comprehension tests, and we have never been given any sort of level or mark for reading. Is it something you need to pay attention to? Does the teacher actually think he's struggling with reading or comprehension? Is he supposed to read a specific book at home? Mine can read whatever he likes at home and at school, except one day a week they read aloud and do a follow up task on a book the school picks. Maybe this is AR, but if so we have never been told any sort of mark or level, and the school have never mentioned it to us.

Can you ask that he isn't told any sort of mark in the future?

Sorry if I have totally missed the point as to what AR is, and there is a reason he is given these marks.