Why Reading Schemes & Book Bands Don’t Work and What I Teach Instead

I worked as a full-time teacher for 12 years. The main banded books used in the schools that I worked at was the Oxford Reading Tree scheme. In this scheme, books are banded by colour and in order of the child’s ‘reading ability’.

Below are the bands together with the year group, age and Oxford level. Oxford Reading Tree are famous for the Biff, Kip and Chip books that you may have read yourself as a child. I remember reading these books in Reception and Year 1.

Why I’m not a fan of Reading Schemes

 A reading scheme is ‘a series of books that have been carefully written to help children learn to read. The books are organised into levels, bands or colours.’

 I have a problem with a few things here.

How can a series of books help all children learn to read? It’s not possible. It is very generic. All children are different; therefore, one story may suit one child and may be totally wrong for another. We cannot continue to discuss children in such a generic way. Reading needs to be planned and tailored to each individual child.

 My second issue with this is that by being organised into levels, bands or colours, children will inevitably compare themselves to their peers and wonder why they are on a certain band when their friend is on a different one. It also brings up a huge issue for me when you have a child for example in Year 4, who is reading at Reception level according to the above table. I had a child who was in year 4 and had to read Pink Level of the Reception band. Each morning, she would need to go down the stairs into Early Years and choose her book together with the 4 and 5 years olds. This completely crushed her confidence and I immediately put a stop to this (of course the school I worked at had a big problem with this!)

Banded books are supposed to provide the ‘right level if challenge’ for children. The books are not supposed to be ‘too easy’ or ‘too difficult’ for the child. It will be up to the teacher to decide when the child is ready to move on or not.

I agree that there needs to be a degree of challenge but I don’t agree that if it’s too easy, their reading won’t get any better. So many times, I would see children being told off for sitting and enjoying their favourite book, only to be told by the teacher that the book was ‘too easy’ and that they should put it down. To be then handed a ‘harder’ book and basically be told to read it. How is that building a love for reading? Honestly, it was infuriating. Also, who determines whether a book is ‘too easy’ or ‘too difficult’? Surely, it should be the child who determines this? Again, here we need to be careful. A child may think a book is ‘too easy’ but then not be able to answer simple comprehension questions relating to that book. It is important to always check.

Again, it is about taking the time to getting to know the child as an individual. Knowing their specific needs and addressing them in a way that suits them.

In my classrooms, I would often read ‘easy’ books to children as a class and I would emphasise how much I personally loved the book and that I would often re- visit it. If a child in my class wanted to read a childhood favourite, I would never tell them it was ‘too easy’. To build a lifelong love of reading in our children, we need to encourage them to pick up the books that they love especially when they are younger. Give them the independence to decide the books they wish to read. I’ve seen that when I do this, they will inevitably go on to choose more challenging books. I would much rather a child choose their book than be told what to read.

Towards the end of my full-time teaching career, I really noticed how flawed the system is when it comes to teaching our children to read. First of all, if reading schemes work, why would some children get to the end of their primary education and still have issues with reading? Why did so many children in the higher year groups have such big gaps in their phonics knowledge? Why could some children read but not be able to answer simple questions about the books they had read? Why were children unable to answer simple comprehension questions?

My answer is this.

Children’s learning is not tailored enough to their individual needs. We cannot continue to see children as the same. Yes, there are 20 -30 children in a class and things need to be done to enable the teacher to be able to teach all of them but I also believe that it is important to find strategies to be able to truly support our children to become effective and confident readers. Not for results on a piece of paper, not to show OFSTED what we have achieved but to truly support children all the way into their adult lives to be able to read and truly understand what they have read. After all, why else are we teaching them to read? Is it so they can score well in their SATS or entrance exams or is it so they can develop further as proficient readers? I teach reading because I want to develop a love of reading in my students. I want them to be able to read books with ease. I want them to have an excellent understanding of what they have read. I want them to come to me and ask me for more books to read. I want to teach them that nothing is too easy and nothing is too hard. This is when I know I have succeeded in teaching a child to read.

I would much rather think of strategies that I know will enable a child to leave Primary school with a strong foundation rather than have a child leave Primary school unable to read as they should. This is simply not right in my eyes. I will not stand for it anymore.

 I personally no longer teach in order to see results on a piece of paper. I teach to see lifelong results in my students. Teaching a child is not about following a set plan, it is about knowing the child as an individual and knowing how to fully support and challenge them so that they can succeed.

How I teach reading

Very simply.

1.     I get to know the child as an individual

This is probably the most important one. When a child feels that you truly care about them and have an understanding of what they like and what they dislike, they will be more likely to take ownership and responsibility for their own learning. I’ve seen children flourish from children who couldn’t read to children who can’t put books down, simply by taking the time to get to know them.

2. I give them books that I personally choose (not banded) that I know will challenge them and support them

I choose books based on the individual child. I let them be the ones to tell me what they enjoy and what they don’t. I find this accelerates reading quality far quicker than ‘making’ a child read a book that doesn’t interest them in the slightest. Imagine being handed a book and just being told to read it. Would you? I don’t think so. So why should children?

3. I focus more on the comprehension and understanding rather than on the reading itself

You can have a child who can read beautifully and fluently but when you ask them a simple question about what they have read, they are unable to answer it. I don’t see the point in reading if you don’t understand what you are reading. I feel the same with spellings. Why give a child a spelling to learn if they don’t know the meaning of the word? If they can’t use that word within a sentence? Pointless.

4.  I focus on phonic sounds that I see the child struggles with and don’t move on until they are confident with them

By doing this, it fast tracks reading quality significantly. I see children in Year 5 and 6 who don’t know the sounds certain digraphs make and therefore are unable to decode even simple words. This will really set them back. I actually find this deeply upsetting. To go through school from Reception to Year 6, we must not allow a child to get to the end of their school life and not be able to decode simple words. It is unacceptable to me as a teacher and as a mother.  To me it is fundamental that children have a strong phonic base. You can see a huge difference in the reading quality of a child with excellent phonic awareness compared to one who doesn’t have that foundation.

5.  I encourage the child to create a vocabulary book and write down all new or tricky words and we revisit them daily

In this way they build a vast vocabulary and can remember words when they see them again. If you take anything from this blog, take this! Create a vocabulary book!

So let’s build a lifelong love for reading and instil that passion into our children. Be led by our children and get to know them as individuals. Support them fully to be the best readers they can be. And if they struggle, not put them down but encourage them and find strategies to support them. I can think of nothing more important when it comes to educating our children.