The 'Book Bands' Reading Scheme

What do Book Band levels mean?

Reading books are graded by difficulty by reading levels known as Book Bands.  Each Book Band has its own colour. The information attached gives an indication of the range of Book Band levels at which most children will be reading as they progress through primary school.

The information shows the progress of an ‘average’ band of children- but no individual child is ‘average’, so no child makes smooth progress precisely in this way. Children tend to learn in fits and starts – periods of growth followed by periods of consolidation when their progress seems to halt for a while. The periods where you don’t see rapid progress may be worrying, especially after a ‘growth spurt’, but they are important as your child develops confidence in using and applying their newly acquired skills. They also need to read  a range of texts at each level i.e. non fiction, poems, plays etc to get a breadth across genres. It is not a race to the end of the levels – more an exploratory journey.