We’re into the first term of the new school year and pretty soon your Superstar Student will come traipsing home with a new reading book, if they haven’t already!
You may find the book is colour-coded, or it might have a number on it, like 1.5 or 6.3. These relate to the book’s technical difficulty, length, and age-appropriate interest.
The trouble is, there are lots of different reading schemes in schools!
In lower years, you will probably come across the Oxford Reading Tree, and you can find a guide to the levels and their general reading age guides HERE. Prepare to spend lots of time with Biff, Chip and Kipper!
You might also see Collins Big Cat books – you can find a comprehensive guide to what each level involves HERE. Note that this doesn’t give a general reading age.
Another common reading scheme is Bug Club. This scheme has both printed books available for Reception to Year 6, but it also has online books, which have a little bug face within each book that a child has to click and answer a question on that part of the book. If your school uses Bug Club, your child might get sent home with a user name and password to read books online at home.
Many primary schools in the UK have now adopted the Accelerated Reader system, which is where it seems a little more complicated. Accelerated Reader doesn’t have a set of books, but is based on the analysis of many thousands of different books – from Harry Potter to Diary of a Wimpy Kid, chances are that your child can find one of their favourite books in there! Each book is analysed for sentence length, sentence structure and complexity, word count and word difficulty. The book is then given a level – anywhere between 0.1 to 13.5! This level does NOT equate to reading age, so don’t panic if your seven-year-old comes home with a book marked 2.8!
Accelerated Reader is based on two testing levels – an initial online comprehension test, which will give a number range (called the ZPD – Zone of Proximal Development, which gives a guide as to which books would be a suitable challenge for each child) that your child should be given. For example, your child might be given a ZPD of 2.9- 4.0. This enables your child to choose books within this range and be confident that they can read them without a struggle – and also without them being far too easy!
Secondly, each child completes a comprehension multiple choice test on EACH book they read. Scoring 85% or above shows that the text has been understood. These comprehension tests are also taken at school, like the initial online test to assess the ZPD levels (mainly to stop us, as parents, helping with the answers!)
The results of both of these test types are analysed and reports are generated for your child’s teacher to monitor.
Things to look for: If your child is consistently getting 100% in the end of book comprehension, they are finding the books easy and may need to look to a higher level book for a greater challenge. If they are consistently getting much lower than 85% – encourage them to try a lower level book in their ZPD range.
For us as parents, for our Superstars to get the most out of any reading scheme, it’s best to try and read little and often (of course, if you’ve got a bookworm who loves to read every spare minute, that’s great too!) Try and find a time that is suitable for YOUR child – it might be last thing at night, straight after school, after dinner, early in the morning – and get into a routine if possible!
For an added incentive, why not download these FREE reading record bookmarks? There are spaces for you to add stickers, stamps, the date, whatever you like to mark when your Superstars have read. You can find them HERE!
If you’ve got a question about reading levels, or anything else about school for your Key Stage Two child, feel free to drop in to my Instagram or Facebook page, or why not join our Supporting Superstar Students FREE Facebook Group? Of course, you can always add a comment below, or email me – thehomeworkfairygodmother@gmail.com – happy to help in any way I can!
Happy reading!
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