Learning to read is an exciting and important part of our early educational experiences. But it’s important to make sure that during these early days in school we’re reading the right thing for our skill level, and making sure that we’re developing our reading as well as enjoying the narrative.  

That’s why reading schemes (sometimes called ‘reading programmes’) and reading levels exist – to ensure that we’re constantly progressing and getting ready to tackle the next stages.  

So… what’s a reading scheme? 

A reading scheme is a series of books that have been carefully created and curated to support literacy acquisition and growing reading ability. They’ll start off with books with simple narratives, simple lexis and uncomplicated plots, and gradually the titles will get more complex and challenging as the series goes on. There’s also an evolving blend of words and pictures: early books on the scheme will have most of the page taken up with an image, and the reading phase is mostly about looking, finding, discussing and relating key words to the image that readers see. The illustration largely conveys more of the story than the text does, but this ratio changes as readers move up the reading scheme. As they progress, images will become smaller and less important to understanding the story— the text will take over the narrative as their comprehension increases.  

All reading schemes have a carefully designed structure to them, that introduces these new challenges at a rate that a developing reader can deal with. Books that are too hard can be frustrating and risk putting a child off reading, and whilst books that are easy can be fun, they’re not adding that element of challenge that helps develop the confidence to read and problem-solve. Reading schemes are about being able to find a happy medium, a book that’s easy enough to understand (or mostly), and difficult enough to keep those skills moving forwards.  

And what are reading levels?

‘Reading levels’ are the different skill bands within a reading scheme. They’ll range from very simple books for beginner readers to more complex ones for more confident readers. There are several different ‘levelling’ book systems in use today including Oxford Levels, Reading Recovery Levels; Read, Write, Inc.; and Cliff Moon Levels. The most commonly used, though, are Book Bands.  

Ok, ok. And what are Book Bands exactly?  

Book bands are a popular system that uses a coloured band to designate between different skill levels. There’s a whole rainbow of colours to choose from, and each colour corresponds to a level of reading fluency and developing skill. They range from pink band books that are aimed at very early developing readers, to a lime book band for readers who have developed fluency and are taking on more advanced texts with confidence. There are higher levels beyond these (brown, grey, dark blue and dark red), however these are more to do with a title’s age appropriateness than a reflection of reading confidence and skill.  

Book Bands can also be translated across most other schemes using a chart like this one, designed to compare Oxford Level with the appropriate Book Band.  

How do you progress using book bands?

The point at which a child ‘moves up a band’ is often to do with many factors, including their confidence and skill. Children develop reading skills at different rates, so it’s important to remember that staying longer in a band than their peers doesn’t mean they’re growing up to be a weak reader – it could just mean that they’ve still got work to do on their pronunciation, fluency or expression. Often during the early years of their reading journey they’ll move up a band quite quickly, and this will slow down as they become more confident, bands get larger, and the breadth of materials available to them widens. 

And what happens next? 

After they’ve got to the end of the Book Band system, most developing readers are ready to start tacking books that are off system (even though they probably have been already) and making their own decisions about what’s an appropriate level of ease and challenge. We call this ‘free reading’, and it means that they’re ready to take on a much greater wealth of information, as well as start exploring other forms of writing like non-fiction, poetry, biography and more.

It’s a watershed point in any educational career, and it means that as well as developing the ability to read a wide range of materials for pleasure, they’re also getting ready to take on different modes of study and start learning more independently too. It’s an exciting time, and should be celebrated – but it’s important to celebrate the smaller milestones too, and make sure that at every step of the way, reading continues to be encouraged and rewarded both in class and at home.