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My DS5 is in Kindergarten this year and is reading above his grade level. The work he completes in class is stuff he went into preschool at 3 being able to do. He is sent home with books that are level I (A to Z levels) but that appears to be his only proper level instruction. I decided that maybe it was time to open a dialogue with his teacher to see if we can do something else to challenge him.

To see the proper way to do things, I emailed the advanced education rep for his elementary mainly just for tips on how to best approach his teacher. She in turned let his teacher in on the fact I was emailing her and the response was that he was in fact not at that level. There was also lots of head patting in the email response of how he'd be fine. They said he was at level F, several levels below and he was sent home with that level of book today. I know he can read far beyond this. I wasn't even sure level I was challenging to him.

How do I even start to talking to him when this was the immediate response? I don't want to be pushy but this is not at all what I expected back.

If you don't advocate for your kids no one will. Some school admins and teachers do not seem to understand that people develop at different speeds. Be firm, persistent and polite for the best results. Prepare for dysfunctional communication with the schools, though, because that seems to be the norm.

I'd wait and see if that level comes home again on Monday. It's possible it came home in error.

Beyond that, spaghetti and BSM are both right, in my experience.

I have been reading post after post on this forum about this crazy reading system (It is most likely Fountas and Pinnel/ "Guided Reading") and all the push-back that parents get when they ask about their child's reading level or indicate that they think their child is placed too low. From what I understand there is an assessment for each level. So an assessment for C, an assessment for F, etc. all the way to Z. If they pass the level "L", for instance, then theoretically they should be given "M" but there appears to be caps for each grade level and some teachers/schools follow the caps and others don't. I am not clear whether the assessments for certain levels are 100 percent one-on-one with the teacher and student or whether some levels also involve writing, but DD's 5th grade teacher told me that she didn't do that well on the "writing" portion of the "W" reading assessment, but she did well verbally. So, she is stuck at a level W because her writing stinks (she actually has writing services in her IEP). Two years ago at this time she was at a Level V, in third grade at a different school. I inquired about going up only one level in two years and immediately got a sort of attitude and brush off, "Oh, that school must not be asking as much as we are" blah blah. I didn't argue but felt like asking what kind of assessment system this is, then, if two different schools can give the same assessment and come up with wildly different results. Meanwhile my third grader is also at a level "W" but his MAP reading score is lower than DD's. So what gives?

DS was at level "O" in kindergarten, then the next year he regressed to an "L", then in second grade he was at around an "N". We switched schools mid-year (to the supposedly more vigourous, strict school when it comes to these assessments) and suddenly he was at a "T", and now a few months later he is at a "W". It's all a big mystery to me how they arrive at these levels. I think the schools must know it's a big mess and they get very defensive when parents ask about it.

Are they giving you an attitude about anything else, or just the reading level?

That's a good point. I will do that before emailing the teacher.

This is really the first time we're dealing with it. I've asked for harder work in the last when the teacher sent home sight word flashcards. She sent home a book of nursery rhymes that he immediately read to me. It was supposed to be a challenge and wasn't it, which tells me she didn't know quite where he was at that point.

The levels are based on a program called A to Z reading. I'm hoping to find more beyond that this next week, like how they test for it.

I think it's a little different than F&P, in that the levels are lower (so a level "L" in A to Z is lower than an L is is for F&P, for example). I think there is a similar assessment system but I don't know a lot about it.

Reading A to Z uses a running record accuracy of 95+%, retell rubric of 95+%, and comprehension quick check quiz of 95+% as the level advancement criteria. In first and second grade, there are six or seven levels expected. After 2nd grade, students should be advancing about three to four levels per year. I is late first grade. F is early first grade.

aeh, so do you know how F&P is different? I'm just curious.

Our DS5 (in kindergarten) got assessed at a DRA 8 (roughly corresponds with an end of kindergarten, start of first grade level). Given that he reads stuff that is closer to 3rd grade books at home it didn't fit.

What we did was ask what drove this disparity. It's important to figured out if there's something they see that you don't or they follow a hard cap on how high you go, or something else. For us, our son had/has issues with retelling or comprehension. It gave us a specific target to work on, which is good. I'd approach it non confrontationally to start with and just ask what is going on. Given that he's now bringing home dra 28 books, it's working thus far.