How do you use the non-phonic ORT books?

[Purplelooby]

Just that really! As my son's reading improves they are sending him one phonic and one normal reading book (mostly but not exclusively ORT). With the second type - do you read it first to them or what? The Biff, Chip and Kipper non-phonic ones seem to contain a lot of words that aren't in the top 100 most frequent and aren't decodable which I'm guessing is on purpose. So far he's figured it out by context or by the pattern of the book - is this how it goes?

[NotCitrus]

We're getting a few of those. I ask dd to read individual words she can probably read, and we sound out long words that follow phonetic rules she's met, and chat about the story and pictures, but dont fret much over them - I get the impression they try to ensure the pure phonics ones get to the kids with no books at home or children struggling. We look out for the letter/phoneme of the day and she's visibly improving daily.
Keep it short and sweet and take over more of the reading if they are tired/not wanting to do it. Mine like doing the bits in speech bubbles which are often easier to decode.

[Feenie]

I solved it by arguing with the headteacher, explaining to her that not teaching daily phonics was going to get her school failed by Ofsted and ordering my (Y1 - Reception's were decodable) ds's books from Reading Chest. I could have got books from my own school, but he loved the books addressed to him in a big important envelope.

My ds learnt to read, but his school failed their subsequent Ofsted on phonics and writing. Should have charged her a consultancy fee.

[Feenie]

I am so sick.of hearing about schools who either do not understand or cannot be arsed to follow a statutory curriculum. It's so depressing. Poor kids.

[Purplelooby]

Ah yeah that sounds like what I thought. The pattern in the story has made it quite easy to follow once I point a word out but I know he's going upto harder books (our school isn't rigid about levels) after half term and I was worried he could find this demotivating. I should add that having these type of books along with his phonics books has improved his reading no-end - it's really helped him with fluency, comprehension and he's getting that it's recognise words even if it's decodable. Perhaps your school are sending a mixture too for this reason?

[Purplelooby]

Oops cross-posted Feenie sorry. My school have always sent him a decodable book too, he just gets two at once. They teach entirely to NC phonics daily etc. But I agree it's terrible when schools don't teach phonics or don't have phonic books. Ours have tons, mostly ORT (e.g. Songbirds, Floppy's, BC and K decodable) but some other scheme too (e.g. Alphablocks). I'm guessing the non-phonic alongside phonic books are to help with fluency (it's definitely done that with him) and using pictures to figure out the story (like an extension of the level 1 picture books).

[Feenie]

They shouldn't be sending anything else for fluency. The whole idea of decodable books is rapid progression. It's v clear in the curriculum.

[ReallyTired]

My daughter was lucky and had decodable books for the whole of reception. In year 1 she started taking home ort. I got her to read the books and if we came across a word she could not read I gave her the word. I explained to her there were some complex phonics rules she would cover later in the year and that the word she was stuck on used phonics rules she hasn't covered yet.

With good phonics teaching decodable books become unnecessary.

[Feenie]

To do otherwise is teaching. mixed methods. Which notoriously fail 20% of children. 1 in 5. Regardless of how many books their well-meaning parents have read to them.

[Feenie]

I tried that with my Year 1 ds, Really Tired. He cried. His confidence was utterly destroyed. He couldn't understand why he could read in Reception, but in Year 1 was asked to read words like 'naughty', furniture' and 'curtains'.He thought he suddenly couldn't read. His headteacher's answer to why they weren't suddenly using decodable books or teaching daily phonics was that 'our results in KS1 are 80%, and that's great!'. Great for the 80%.

[ReallyTired]

Feenie, I think the subtle difference is that gave my daughter the difficult word. I didn't let her struggle. I also tried to teach the extended code as we came across new words.

Ofcourse every child is different. We had one terrible book on dinosaurs where dd didn't stand a chance.

[Feenie]

I just had to work with what I had, Really Tired. He was very quickly demoralised by the material he brought home. When I dug deeper and found out that phonics was only even taught 3 times a week.in.Y1 and he was in the middle group in March but only on Phase 3, I took over. When I looked round schools and struggled with whether to.send him to my schol or not, they told me they taught using phonics only - and they did, in Reception.

[ReallyTired]

I think that some children are more damaged by premature use of non decodable books than others. Dd experienced a loss of confidence, but it was not bad enough to make her cry. Dd made the transition at about orange book band level (ort stage 5) to non decodable books.

Many parents have no idea how to teach phonics. I am glad that the phonics check has flushed out poor teaching. Dd's school had a pass rate of 29% in the year 1 phonics. It was one the reasons Dd's school failed it's OFSTED.

[Feenie]

Ds's year had a 45% year pass, I think we can conclude that both our children had parents who knew what was what. Luckily.

[ReallyTired]

Dd year had 76%. It's the year before her that had 29%. Dd's school was put into special measures 3 weeks after she started. Thankfully dd has had some reasonable phonics teaching. A lot of resources were put into the school to improve phonics.

The jump from 29% to 76% was due to using purely decodable books in reception and systematic teaching. I think if they used purely decodable books until a child was ready regardless of age the results would be even better.

[mrz]

Purplelooby I'd simply leave them in the book bag.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I'm not sure the PSC has flushed out poor phonics teaching. Given the number of schools that seem to have tried to improve results by wasting time teaching pseudo words.

[mrz]

I wish there was a like button

[Feenie]

And given the number of teachers who haven't even read the English curriculum.

[ferriswheel]

Wow Feenie! Wow.

[mrz]

If MN is representative then the situation is depressingly dire

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

there's an awful lot of teachers saying they have to do x/y/z even though they don't want to because it's in the new curriculum even when those things aren't. And a lot who don't seem to be meeting the statutory requirements. It's a reasonable conclusion that either they haven't read it, they haven't read it properly or they've misunderstood it.

I can see how the last two might happen.

[Bluepowder]

The non-decodable ORT books are still around in many, many schools. Given that neither volunteer parents nor TAs are given any training in how to listen to children read, there is still no integrated system. It seems to be the case that schools feel that whole class phonic sessions delivered by the teacher is fine, coupled with extra reading of non-decodable books for those that are struggling.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I think a lot of schools are still holding on the phonics being only one part of decoding. It doesn't help if you're training your volunteers and TAs to use multicueing strategies.

[Bluepowder]

Yes. Then during Key Stage 2 or 3 it means there are many poor habits to break with struggling readers. It's so frustrating as it is easily avoidable.

[Bluepowder]

I get to see it all as I am a TA, but I have no power to change any of it.