What is the "average" reading level at the end of reception year?with ORT.

[wrinklytum]

Anyone?

Level 3 I think

Thanks.Feel reassured.Have had shitey year with dp being very poorly and dd having lots of sn appointments etc.Have tried really hard to keep up with ds stuff at school and read with him nightly and felt guilty that haven't done enough.Teachers feel ds is fairly bright 9not g=t oor owtbut fairly bright,and I do lots of other non schooly stuff with him,museums,trips out etc when I can but have felt I was failing him sometimes)That helps thanks

Early Learning Goals

Grrrr I hate ORT. The levels jump about too much and are inconsistant.

I have posted a link to DFEE website stating what is expected by the end of Reception Year. Bearing in mind that they need to be a child genius to complete all statements in all areas! This is what is used in schools to assess

Look here - from ORT website. They suggest that by end of Reception children will have finished stage 2.

Riven - don't think to yourself that daughter is a bit behind!! Have you looked at the Early Learning Goals??

You cannot assess any child's reading ability from what level of commercial reading scheme they are on!

Does your DS school teach a phonetic method of reading???? I ask because ORT is based on sight vocabulary - recognising words from memory, and has very few phonetically regular words (words you can sound out like cat). A few years age this was the way that reading was taught and most schools have a big stock of ORT. Now things have gone back to teaching reading & writing using phonics. However, reading books are expensive and schools cannot afford to replace ORT with a more phonetic scheme so often keep the newer books for sharing in class and send home the ORT.

We use book banding in my school which is farly common in most schools now(all commercial schemes & real books are grouped according to difficulty) This gives a more reliable overview of where children are at with their reading skill development.

We have parents' evening in a couple of weeks so I will have a better idea then of what ds can do. From my own observations I reckon he will have completed the Early Learning Goals even though he is currently only on stage 1+ of ORT. I would be amazed if he manages to even start stage 2 by the end of reception.

I have no idea if he is bright, average or behind. At nursery he was considered bright but at school his teacher just says that he is doing whatever he is supposed to be doing.

Ds does phonics. I thought that the ORT Songbirds series was phonics and the Biff, Chip, Kipper series (don't know the name of them) was more sight reading. At least that is what ds's teacher told me. He is capable of doing stage 2 in Songbirds but not in the Biff series.

Oxford Reading Tree are Biff Chip & Kipper stories are published by OUP
Songbirds also published by OUP (same publisher but different scheme).

I sent all the ORT books I inherited to Africa when I took over as Literacy Coordinator.

What is average will depend on how your child's teacher likes to move them along through the scheme.

For example our Reception teacher refused to move kids through the book banded reading scheme at more than a very slow snail's pace. The best readers in the class were still on red (stage 1+) at the end of Reception. Year one, new teacher and if they are able, then they fly through the scheme at a rapid pace and are now on White level (ORT 11-12)...but I know other schools which arrange it in the opposite way - fast progress in reception, slowed down in Yr 1.

Your best source of information is the school, I would suggest you ask you child's teacher how they are doing. Knowing how kids are doing at other schools just doesn't help.