The Primary Educator

Category: dyslexia

  • What book levels should your child be reading?

    What books should my child be reading?

    Book levels and bands

    I want to preface this blog post by saying that not all schools follow the same way of marking their book levels, and not all book schemes are kind enough to match the colour levels (Though thankfully, Oxford Reading Tree does!). I will do my best to cover the different levels of book bands, but please take it with a pinch of salt! 

    In school, children are often told they are on a certain ‘colour’ of book. This is meant to make it easier for everyone to know where the child is in their reading journey and help parents support with reading at home. But book bands are very rarely (if ever) explained. 

    I’m hoping to make it a bit clearer for you, and also give you some tips on how you can choose books for your little one, even if they aren’t colour coded. 

    Book band colours 

    Most ‘early reading books’ are marked with a colour, corresponding to how hard they are to read. Below, I will give a quick overview of what happens at each level. 

    With reception books, it’s good to focus on spaces between words, punctuation, sounding out CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) and spotting common high frequency and tricky words (like – the, I, etc.) 

    Quite repetitive, very short. Usually read with an adult. These books are used to get children recognising words and the spaces between them. Children are not expected to read these to themselves or with support. They may start to remember some very common words though! 

    Very similar to pink books. Again, these are designed to be read with an adult with very little reading from the child. Focus on comprehension questions to develop understanding and recognising some tricky words.

    I have known many Year 1 children who start on these books.

    Children are able to read a word or two themselves by blending, and should be recognising a few high frequency words. There are slightly more words per page, though the sentences are likely still repetitive. 

    With year 1 books, children begin to read words without blending and more fluency. Some children may whizz away and be able to read longer words without hesitating, while others will be able to read shorter words by sight and sound out longer words. It’s a good idea to work on ‘chunking’ longer words to help children remember different parts of them. 

    Children often reach Blue books in the first term of Year 1. There are usually more words that can be blended (including digraphs) and more varied sentences. Children are more likely to be able to read a whole sentence by sounding out and recognising tricky words. They don’t need to be reading fluently though, and will still be sounding out most words! Books begin to have CVCC or CCVC words in them.

    Children are able to recognise or blend most of the sounds in words. They are able to recognise punctuation, meaning they might pause at full stops or commas. This is when most children start to say some common words without blending them out loud. The books get a bit longer and children work on their reading stamina by trying to read longer and longer sections! There are usually more consonants blends in words. 

    Again, these books get harder. Children might be reading multi-syllable words and should be recognising a broader range of tricky words (phase 5 tricky words for example). Again, children blend words more rarely and their reading becomes more fluent. Books normally have between 4 and 5 sentences to a page. 

    At this point, the Year groups become a little mixed up! Some children will be happily on Purple books in Year 1 and some will be happily on Orange books in Year 2. As long as your little one is enjoying reading and is moving towards reading without sounding out, they’re doing great!

    At this point, children should start to be able to read with expression and not be using the picture to work out what will happen next. They will be almost fluent readers, and will be tackling longer books with more sentences and smaller pictures. 

    In real terms, at this point a child might well be considered a ‘free reader’ in that they can feasibly pick up any book and read it. They might begin reading in their head and will be comprehending what they read much more quickly. This is where we encourage as much comprehension as we can, particularly with inferences! For more information on this, check out my blog on comprehension! 

    These are chunkier books, though still with large pictures. They tend to have around 10 sentences per page and your child should be able to read silently, sounding out only new words and quickly assimilating them into their vocabulary. 

    The beginning of chapter books! While these chapters may be short, children are able to remember a lot of what they have read and explain it to someone else. They can also answer questions about the text as a whole. 

    When your child gets to lime green books, it’s a fair bet to say that they can read most books fluently in their heads. They don’t tire easily when reading and understand almost everything they read.

    As you can see, there is a bit of crossover when it comes to different levelled books and this is what makes it very hard to work out what level your little one should be on. Some books in a band will be harder than others and you may even find that they are harder than a book in the level above. I’m general, a child moves on when they can read 80% of the books in the band at the required level. 

    As I said, the levels at which children start to read each book band should be taken with a pinch of salt. Every class of year 1 children I have ever taught has had children on Yellow books and children on Purple books too! Every child learns at their own pace! 

    To recap – 

    • pink-red – mostly read by the adult with a few blending words
    • Yellow – mostly sounded out by your child with phase 2 words
    • Blue – mostly sounded out by your child with digraphs/trigraphs
    • Green/orange – sounded out with some words not blended. Consonant blends
    • Turquoise/purple – reading without sounding out most words
    • Gold/white – reading in your head 
    • Lime green – chapter books and increased reading stamina. 

    When should your child move up a book band? 

    Again, this is slightly difficult to answer as each phonics scheme has slightly different criteria. Some say your child should be able to read every word in a book confidently before moving on, and others say it should be only half the words. Equally, this can be difficult to work out in the lower levels, as some of the books must be read by parents in order to be understood. 

    I would suggest that your child moves up a level when they can recognise roughly 70% of words in most of the books they are given and can answer comprehension questions relevant to their age level (again, if you want help with this, check out my comprehension blog). 

    I do just want to mention that there can be a difference in what your little one reads confidently to you and what they read confidently in class. Reading in front of others can be worrying and may mean children don’t read as surely as they would at home. If this is what your little one is struggling with, it’s better to keep them on a lower book band until their fluency is higher, so boosting their confidence around others, rather than pushing them to read more complex texts and adding more stress in class. 

    If you are looking for an un-levelled book in the library, you want to be looking for; 

    • Books with tricky words within your child’s phonics phase
    • Of the other words, they should be 80% words that your child can decode (words that can be sounded out) 
    • Sentences per page similar to what your child is used to

    If you’ve found this helpful, please check out my other blogs on this website, or join my Facebook group – Reading in Reception – where I offer more advice and support! 

    If you want to support your child further and get more individualised support for both you and your child, check out my course – Curious to Confident  – where you can learn all about teaching the pillars of reading, become confident that you know where your child is in their reading journey,  how to ensure you’re getting the most out of reading with your child, and how to fit learning into your day with no extra preparation needed from you.  Check it out!

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  • How to engage your child with reading.

    How to engage your child with reading

    How to stop those ‘wiggle butts’ and get your child engaged with reading. 

    Are you someone who wonders how to engage your child with reading? Over the years, I’ve known many children who love being read to, will sit and listen for hours, but as soon as they’re asked to read, suddenly, nothing will persuade them to sit still! 

    In fact, this exact thing was mentioned when I was having a conversation with my friend. She said her little one (4) was so proud of her reading, and loved stories, but found it hard to stay engaged when reading herself. I gave her a list of things she could try to help, and she suggested I write them down. So that’s exactly what I’ve done! 

    Below are a series of things you can try to engage your little one with reading, whether they can’t read a word yet, or are ‘free readers’ but are occasionally reluctant to read to you. If you think of someone who might find it helpful, please share it! 

    Remember attention spans – make reading active to engage your child

    A big part of the frustrations children face is with attention spans and focus. The average 4 year old has an attention span of 8-12 minutes. If a child is expected to focus for longer than this, it leads to frustration and that ‘wiggle bottom’ I mentioned at the beginning. 

    This doesn’t mean all reading sessions can only be 8 minutes long, however. In fact, a brain break of just a few seconds can be enough to help our little ones refocus. I used to do this in the classroom all the time. “Everyone get up, wiggle to the count of 10 and sit down again” and the kids would be ready for the next part of the lesson. 

    Making reading active has the same affect. When your little one is reading and the character in the book does something, encourage them to act it out. It gives them a few seconds to break away from the difficulty of reading and let’s you know they’ve understood what they read too! 

    Obviously you don’t have to do this every time the character does something, but once every few pages can be very helpful!

    Switching child led reading to a different time of the day 

    Now, I can hear some of you saying, but we read just before bed! I don’t want to hype my little one up, I want to calm them down! 

    And to that, I say, it’s fantastic that you’re ending the day with reading! It’s a great way to do something calm together that will settle them down and is great bonding too! But could you maybe read to them at bedtime, and change the reading with them to a different time? 

    I know time can be very tight at home. It certainly is for me! But by getting them to read to you at a different time, you can separate work from bedtime and keep that as a calm, content time for both of you to enjoy, rather than getting them to work their brains when they’re most tired. And if you’re finding they resist reading, bedtime is not the best time for an argument either! 

    Instead, try reading for a few minutes first thing in the morning. You could try getting them to read a book to you while you get breakfast ready. Another option is reading straight after school. They’re already in the working mindset and as soon as it’s done, they get the whole evening to relax and decompress from school. 

    Routine is always ideal so whatever you choose, try to stick to it every day. It’ll help them adjust and reduce stress all round!

    Shared reading

    Shared reading is another fantastic way to lessen the load of reading off your little one, encouraging them to read more, while still getting the joy they have from you reading to them. Explain to them that you’ll read a page if they read a page. This also gives them time to look at the pictures while you’re reading, something that a lot of children miss when they start reading and are expected to move straight on to the next page. Equally, just giving them more time per page may encourage them to read more! 

    Ask for help with words 

    If your child is still struggling with shared reading, you can break it down even further. Start by reading the book to your child completely. Find a word you know they can read, either a tricky word, or one they can blend, and get ‘stuck’. You could say “I can’t remember this word, can you help me?” Or try and sound it out and then hmm. I’ve never met a child who doesn’t love correcting and helping an adult and this can be a very useful way of building confidence too! 

    Spot the word games 

    Another one to try is to choose a word from the book for your little one to spot. This could either be a word that appears regularly, or one that only turns up once or twice. Write it on a piece of paper and practice it with them before you start the book. As they go through, get them to point it out every time they spot it. They could get a sticker for each one (or just a high five, I find they work just as well!) 

    This helps children to engage with what they’re reading and counts as a brain break, as they have to check the word on each page. This becomes a sort of transition where they’re focusing on something else! 

    Ask questions that get them thinking – engage their brain, engage your child

    Knowing whether your child has understood what they’ve read is another massive part of reading. Asking questions after each page or a few pages gives your child a second to think about something else, breaking up the book and making it more interesting. It also helps with processing skills and ensures their brain is focusing on more than one thing at a time. 

    If you’d like more help with comprehension skills, you can check out this blog – demystifying reading comprehension. 

    Reading a different language

    The last thing I want to mention is just how hard reading is. 

    If you’re a literate adult without dyslexia or other difficulties, it’s probably the case that reading is quite easy for you. You may not ever sound out words or even think about what you’re reading. Learning to read was a very long time ago. You might not even remember it at all! 

    For our children, it’s very different. Each letter has to be worked out, matched to a sound, blended and then given a meaning to make a word. Below, I have given you the Greek alphabet and a sentence with the same letters (the words aren’t in Greek, just the letters have been changed). Have a go at decoding and reading the words. It will give you an idea of how much effort it takes our little ones to read! No wonder they’re tired at the end! 

    Λεαρνινγ το ρεαδ ις ηαρδ. 

    Just being mindful of the effort our little ones are putting in to reading can help both us and them. We can acknowledge how hard reading is, and praise their resilience and hard work. This helps foster the bond between us and lets them know we understand. 

    Whatever you try, remember that you’re doing an amazing job. Just by trying to read with your child, you’re setting them up for success and giving them support for the most important area of learning. 

    If you want to support your child further and get more individualised support for both you and your family, check out my course – Curious to Confident  – where you can learn about the pillars of reading, become confident that you know where your child is in their reading journey, how to ensure you’re getting the most out of reading with your child, and how to fit learning into your day with no extra preparation needed from you.  Check it out!

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  • When should my child start writing?

    When should my child start writing?

    Should my child be writing more?

    Writing can be a very stressful part of learning for both parents and children. Often, we feel that our child’s reading is ‘good enough’ or ‘getting there’, but their writing is barely just starting. 

    In my years in the classroom, I’ve often heard parents worry that their child can read CVC words, but can only write their name (and even that looks messy!). I’ve written this blog as an easy resource to help parents understand how writing progresses, how to help encourage writing (when your little one is ready) and hopefully calm some worries that your child isn’t writing! 

    Hand development and writing 

    The main reason why younger children find writing harder is due to physical development. In a child of 4, the bones of the hand are still growing and have not yet fused fully. Below are two x-rays. The one on the left is the hand of a 7 year old and the one on the right is a 4 year old. You can see how dramatic the difference is! 

    7 year old hand x-ray (left) – 4 year old hand x-ray (right)

    As the bones and muscles are not fully developed, your child has less control over their grip than they will have in a few years. Trying to control their pencil at this stage may lead to them hunching their shoulder or balancing their elbow on the table, both of which can lead to more problems and discomfort. Encouraging your child to stand while they are writing (or wiggle, or jump or move in general) is actually helping them develop their core stability, and their motor skills!

    Mark making and attributing meaning to shapes 

    Some children might be very keen to write at 4, but not every child is ready, just as not every child is ready to read, or skip, or play football! All children, however, want to create. Part of creating is ‘mark making’, which is an area that all children enjoy. 

    Mark making is exactly what it sounds like, making marks in a variety of ways. The next step is attributing meaning to the marks they make, and finally, writing. If your child is not ready to write (or doesn’t want to), mark making is an excellent step that encourages them to express themselves and builds fine and gross motor control at the same time!! 

    Mark making also does not have to be done with a pencil. In fact, until they have developed those muscles and skills in their fingers, regular pencils can be detrimental. Children just don’t have the control to use them! Instead, try chunky pencils, round paintbrushes, extra large chalks, stamps and finger painting. Making marks with these will help build wrist stability and finger isolation, making it easier for them to write in the future. 

    Building motor control – developing the skills for writing

    In order to write, your little one needs to have a certain amount of development throughout their whole body. Building core strength helps children stay upright even when sitting down. Ever seen a child slumping at the dinner table? That’s because of their core strength! If they don’t have it, it can be exhausting trying to sit up straight. 

    Core strength can be developed by 
    • Using climbing frames and other playground apparatus – balancing as children move around climbing frames helps develop core strength and stability, as does climbing up, down and around. 
    • Sitting upright – when eating, encourage your child to sit up at a table. This helps them build their core muscles for short periods of time while they’re focusing on something else. If you eat with them, it can also help them with their communication and vocabulary skills! 
    • Spending time outside – playing outside in a park or forest, offers so many opportunities for your little one to develop core strength. Climbing, jumping, even rolling on the floor, all help mobility and build core muscles! 

    As well as core strength, your little one needs to develop ‘gross motor skills’, which essentially means the muscles in their arms and shoulders. Imagine you’re holding a pen in the air. Easy! But then I say you have to hold it like that for an hour. Suddenly, holding a pen becomes much more difficult. It’s the same for our kids. If we ask them to write, we’re asking them to ‘hold the pen’, using the muscles in their arms and shoulders to keep control of it. Again, if they’ve built those muscles, easy! But if not it can become an exercise in frustration. 

    Gross motor control can be developed by 
    • Climbing frames – climbing up and down helps with balance, core strength (to pull themselves up) and the muscles in their arms. 
    • Drawing large pictures – big movements like large circles, lines and shapes help to develop the range of movement while also mark making. 
    • Using different surfaces – instead of just writing on paper at a table, change the angle. Encourage your little one to write standing up against the wall, lying on the floor, or even upside down, under a table! 

    The final thing your little one needs is ‘fine motor control’ or the muscles in your fingers. This comes last because they are the smallest muscles and need all of the larger ones to work properly. These muscles control the tiny movements the pencil makes on the paper, forming letters. Again, they need to build strength in order to do this. Anyone who has ever had RSI knows how uncomfortable it can be to push your fingers past their comfort zone! 

    Things that can help your little one develop fine motor control:
    • Play dough – pulling, squishing and shaping play dough helps build muscles in the fingers and arms, which will help with writing later on! 
    • Peg games – picking things up with tweezers or pegs helps build strength in the hand, making it easier to hold things, including a regular pencil. 
    • Finger games in nursery rhymes – nursery rhymes that include finger movements (like incy wincy spider or Tom Thumb) help with finger isolation, helping your child learn to control each finger. This helps with pencil grip and control. If you’d like to find out what else your child can learn from nursery rhymes, check out this blog – Do Nursery Rhymes help our children?
    • Finger painting – again, this helps with isolation of movement, improving control (and it’s a lot of fun!) 

    A short introduction to pencil grip 

    I’m not going to write a whole section on pencil grip, but I do want to briefly go over the different stages and how the muscles are needed. 

    • Fist grip – relies on core and gross motor skills 
    • Pincer grip – begins to use fine motor skills as well, with some control of movement (using finger isolation) 
    • Standard pencil grip – requires all the muscles skills! This is the hardest one for children to learn, though it’s the easiest one to use to control a pencil! 

    Whichever one your child is on, hopefully this will help you to know which stage they need to be working on next! 

    If you’d like to find out more, check out this blog – Pencil Grip – mylittlelearner 

    Reading before writing 

    You might have heard it said, a child needs to read before they can write. This is essentially true, though I’ve definitely met children who find writing easier! What it really means, is children need to be able to hear sounds in words before they can write them. 

    Developing listening skills helps our children to identify sounds in words, making writing much easier, what ever stage their muscles are at! If you’d like to learn more about listening skills, you can check out my blog here – 10 Listening Games that will help your child.

    Valuing writing and self-expression 

    I could write a whole blog post on this – and may well, soon – but valuing writing in your daily life is a brilliant way to encourage your child to write. 

    Praising your little one when they mark make and encouraging them to tell you about what they’ve drawn or written shows that you value their effort and will solidify in their minds that writing is a good thing! 

    Equally, encouraging your little one to draw their feelings or ideas helps them begin to recognise the link between mark making and communication. Once they’ve made this link, it is likely they will be more enthusiastic about communicating in this way and eventually, writing down their thoughts. 

    If you’ve found this blog post useful or interesting, please join my Facebook group, where I regularly post tips and support for parents of Reception children. It’s a wonderful, supportive community for parents where you can share your wins and get answers to your questions. We’d love to have you!  

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  • Demystifying reading comprehension

    Demystifying Reading Comprehension

    Demystifying Reading Comprehension – How do I know if my child understands what they read? 

    Comprehension can often be a sticking point with lots of parents. You read with your child everyday, you listen to them sound out words, maybe they’re even reading sentences, but you’re not sure if they really understand what they’ve read. Maybe their teacher has told you they need to focus on their comprehension, but you’re not sure how.

    I’ve got you! 

    As a teacher, I often worked with children who could read the words, but needed to focus on their understanding, inference skills and identifying specific words in the text. Blending letters together is completely different from understanding what you read! 

    That’s why I’ve put together this blog going over the different levels of comprehension for a child under 7, and giving examples of how you can use questions to understand exactly where your child is in their understanding. 

    Blank’s Levels of Questioning – Comprehension broken down

    While comprehension is a very broad topic, it can be useful to look at it in terms of questions and answers. If your little one can answer these questions, they understand what they’ve read, or what has been read to them. Blank, Rose and Berlin conducted a study based around comprehension and questioning that can be broken down into four different levels. 

    These levels start with concrete questions and answers such as pointing at a picture and asking “what is this?” and goes on to include abstract questions such as “How could we fix it?”.  By Year 1, the average child should be able to answer questions on all 4 levels, though they might find inferencing and abstract questions need a bit of guidance! 

    Under 3 – Level 1 comprehension – Look for it! 

    These are questions where the answer is literally right in front of your child. They don’t have to do any deep thinking, they only have to understand what you’ve asked and point it out. This can be done with really little children and not just with reading! It involves using your eyes more than anything and so can be done by looking at pictures, around the house or outside. It doesn’t even require a book! 

    There are 4 subsections to this level.

    • Matching objects
    • Naming objects
    • Imitating a sentence
    • Recalling objects or information

    Essentially, you ask your child a simple question, they find the answer and respond! Some examples are:

    • Can you find a ___?
    • What is this?
    • Can you spot the ____?
    • How many ____ were there?
    • What do you see?
    • What did you see? 
    • What did I say?
    • Repeat after me.

    3-4 – Level 2 comprehension – Look and think!

    Moving on slightly from Level 1, now your child needs to think a little bit about what you’ve asked. Children should develop this ability around the age of 3 and it’s the first step towards thinking more deeply. You child needs to focus on the question a little more and identify what you’re asking for. It might include identifying objects by their characteristics, describing something, recalling information or identifying differences.

    The answer is still easy to find, but there’s an added step! Again, these don’t only have to be applied to a book. You could ask them throughout the day!

    • Find something that is red
    • find something that you drink from
    • find something that is round and yellow (two characteristics)
    • find a vegetable
    • find an animal
    • What is happening right now?
    • What happened in the story? 
    • What did the boy do?
    • What is the mum doing?
    • How are the dogs different?
    • Can you finish a sentence? I like…

    4-5 – Level 3 comprehension – Using clues

    Instead of the answer being right there, this level requires your little one to think for themselves and use clues from the book to think of their own answer. It’s the first step towards inferring what the author might be thinking of. They might take on the roll of another and describe how they’re feeling or predict what will happen next. These questions don’t need specific answers but do require your child to be a little inventive!

    Talking about stories and events can happen anywhere, though it can be harder to do when following a story, so challenging your child to do these is an excellent step! Following instructions are also included in this level of comprehension, so it’s a good chance to challenge your child to do so, even if they (like most children) don’t want to! 

    • What do you think will happen next?
    • How might she fix it?
    • What do you think they are going to do?
    • Put on your shoes and get your scarf.
    • Drink your milk and then you can have an apple. 
    • How do you make a sandwich?
    • How do you brush your teeth?
    • How did they solve the problem?
    • How are these children the same?
    • Find something that is not green.
    • Find one that does not have leaves.
    • What is a ____?

    5+ – Level 4 comprehension – Developing opinions

    Now we start to encourage our children to develop reasoning skills, particularly, reasoning about their own opinions and explaining them to others. This is so important, not just in comprehension, but in life. Encouraging our children to explain why they think something enables them to communicate more thoroughly with those around them, and explain their views. This can help in the playground, the classroom and the home, leading to more confident children!

    This level of comprehension requires higher level problem solving which is why it may take some children longer to develop this. Blank Rose and Berlin found that only 65% of 5 year olds could answer this level of questioning. It focuses on making predictions, explaining thought processes and coming to logical solutions. 

    • What will happen if ___? 
    • What do you think will happen if _____? Why?
    • Why wouldn’t that work?
    • Why can’t you cut bread with a spoon?
    • Why can’t you cut down a tree with a straw?
    • What made that happen?
    • Why did that happen?
    • How could they have done it differently?
    • What would you do?
    • How can you solve this?
    • How can you tell he is happy?
    • What word tells you she is sad?

     

    Putting these into practice

    Have a look at the picture above. In the story, the girl with her back turned has dropped her purse. Using the same picture, we can ask questions at all 4 levels. 

    1. Level 1 – Can you see an umbrella?
    2. Level 2 – Find something that is blue.
    3. Level 3 – What do you think will happen next?
    4. Level 4 – What would you do?

    Hopefully this shows how you can use different levels of questioning with any level of reading! If you have a child that finds reading harder, or hasn’t started to learn letters yet, you can still encourage their comprehension.

    Final thoughts

    Comprehension helps our children develop critical thinking skills that support them throughout their lives, not just in reading. Whatever stage of comprehension your child is currently at, asking questions and encouraging your child to expand on their answers is a valuable way of developing these skills.

    I hope I’ve managed to give you some ideas for how to extend their learning! If you’ve enjoyed reading this, maybe check out one of my other blog posts, or click on the socials links below to be taken to my social media pages! 

    If you want to support your child further and get more individualised support for both you and your family, check out my course – Curious to Confident  – where you can learn about the pillars of reading, become confident that you know where your child is in their reading journey, ensure you’re getting the most out of reading with your child, and how to fit learning into your day with no extra preparation needed from you.  Check it out!

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