Oxford reading tree....confused

[SparklyStream]

What's the difference between 'Read with Kipper, Biff, Chip' level 3 and 'ORT' level 3?

[Periwinkle007]

is that the read at home set you mean?

in the read at home set they have 6 levels starting with grey which they call level 1 and purple which they call level 2 but these 2 levels are really just one. grey is an introductory level really so they equate I believe to STAGE 1/1+ and BOOK BAND 1. Green (I think it is green, can't actually remember) is then STAGE 2 and BOOK BAND 2 but level 3 in the read at home set

doubt you followed that, I think I have confused myself.

[AbbyR1973]

I find the ORT Read at Home books slightly harder than those of the equivalent colour level in other ORT series. Somebody somewhere said this was because they are supposed to be books for parents to share with children rather than children to read entirely themselves at that level.

[Periwinkle007]

I think the phonic ones can be harder Abby, they are so literally riddled with all the different spellings.

[SparklyStream]

You need a degree to understand all this....I've got two and I'm still struggling!

[Periwinkle007]

haha. yep welcome to the world of reading schemes.

it gets worse when you are trying to work out if a sunshine spirals book is from the same box as a new way or a ginn 360. of course ginn have different bits within their range so they aren't all the same anyway and sunshine spiral book levels aren't necessarily the same as sunshine ones and ORT seems to vary because since the books were written some have been reclassified into different bookbands so....

[learnandsay]

Or you just ignore the whole silly business and read real books.

[Periwinkle007]

well yes exactly Learnandsay. Sadly not many schools have cottoned on to that idea yet. I am currently trying to get to see inside the book boxes in my daughter's school to see what exactly they have so I could politely suggest they supplement magic key with some proper books. The lower levels have variety of books because of the old reading schemes (still schemes but at least variety) but beyond level 6 is getting a bit desperate. I would much prefer the Large Family, Winnie the Witch, This is the Bear, My Cat likes to hide in boxes and so on. mind then we would have already read them all so perhaps it wouldn't work after all.

[learnandsay]

On the whole, as long as the child can already read well, I think it probably doesn't matter that much as long as the school books are somewhere in the child's reading range. My solution is to rush through the scheme books at the speed of light and then turn to our real books from home without pausing for breath.

[Periwinkle007]

thats how I try to do it too but 32 pages of magic key inevitably takes away 15 minutes of her 'other' reading time (and add on the tantrum about why she DOESN'T want to read it. am hoping though the 15 minutes will decrease now she has her glasses, she COULD read it a lot quicker but the fuss and attitude tends to drag it out a bit). I would prefer not to read the ones they send home (unless it is one she actually wants to) but I feel I ought to. I must admit though I am getting to the stage of just writing in her book 'refused to read school book, read insert harder book title instead' but I feel that is a bit rude and not hugely helpful to them progressing her as then she would never change school book and so wouldn't ever move up and the gap would get wider between what she can read and what they give her. Perhaps I could just make her read 3 pages as a token effort and then she can read what she likes.

[simpson]

School reading books are a bit hit and miss with DD. she hates the JP ones (I have to bribe her that I will listen to her read something else afterwards) but the other books she gets seem ok...

[Mashabell]

I think if children are doing a fair amount of reading at home there is no need whatsoever to make them read books they hate.

The original ORT scheme was written to teach children the first 100 or so most common words with some tricky-to-decode letters. There is no reason why u cannot revise a few of those on a regular basis, but let your children read what they enjoy.

The main thing to remember is that children's reading improves through reading - no matter what books they read. I would not worry about levels in the slightest.

The most often used tricky words are the following.

In the first 100 most HF words, 40 are not entirely decodable:
the - he, be, we, me, she,
was, want, all, call, said,
of, to, one, come, do, down, into, look, now,
only, other, some, two,
could, you, your,
when, what, where, which, who, why,
there, were,
right, are, have, before, more.

In next 200, 55 are clearly tricky:
another, any, many, saw, water, small, laughed,
bear, great, head, ready,
ever, never, every, eyes,
find, friends, giant, I?ll, I?m, key, live, river,
people, pulled, put, thought, through, were, work, would,
coming, everyone, gone,
most, mother, oh, once,
grow, how, know, snow, town, window,
book, food, good, room, school, soon, too, took, door,
Mr Mrs

Another 13 are slightly so (partly depending on accent):
after, asked, can?t, fast, last, plants
animals, dragon, magic,
clothes, cold, old, told

Masha Bell

[mrz]

They tried "real books" and it left 1.2 million illiterate

[Periwinkle007]

I am not talking about real books at the basic levels though Mrz. I am talking book bands 7/8/9/10/11 where they already know and can read and decode all the stuff they need to. They can read already and they can decode and work out words they haven't come across before. Therefore they should have interesting and enjoyable books to read IMO.

[mrz]

Reading scheme books are text books written to teach specific skills. It's a bit like saying my child doesn't need a maths book because they can add and subtract. Reading isn't just the ability to decode words.

[learnandsay]

It's a bit more like saying my child doesn't need a my first numbers book because she can already add and subtract.

[Periwinkle007]

I don't understand Mrz, A reading scheme book, say Biff Chip and Kipper stage 8 teaches what exactly? Comprehension, prediction, punctuation etc all crop up in normal books too. Most reading beyond about level 6 is really about practice and exposure rather than anything else. Old reading schemes used to stop much earlier. This was probably a problem then because there weren't actually that many young children's books at the right level and a child who has read to level 6 is not a full reader I understand that but I can't see how plodding through 14 books of the same formulaic writing is teaching more than reading a couple of them and then lots of other story books which have different styles, themes, words etc. Surely their reading experience should be very broad not restricted.

[learnandsay]

I think I heard that the Boff, Kopp, and Krapper stories end and some point around there, anyway, periwinkle. So, I guess the writers pre-empted your question. Perhaps they could have gone in for some more money and written another fourteen pointless levels. I mean why not? Everyone else seems to.

[mrz]

Personally I don't think Ol' Biff Chip et al teach anything

[Mashabell]

Learning to read is not like learning to read in any language and least of all in English, because fluent reading involves mainly instant recognition of whole words. Phonic decoding is merely an initial stage towards this.

The main difference, however, is that maths is logical, while English spelling is largely random and therefore even early reading involves a lot of rote-learning. For spelling, even more so.

There is no logical means of working out differences like 'blue shoe flew through too...'. It depends entirely on word by word memorisation.

[mrz]

Spelling is logical masha you just fail to see it. English spellings relate to meaning and history

[Periwinkle007]

can I ask Mrz what books you would want to see in Book bands 7/8/9?

[mrz]

It would depend on what skill/s I wanted the child to focus on

[freetrait]

I found between stages 6 and errr about 10 quite tricky actually as far as other "normal" books to read. And DS only had Magic Key as far as "reading books". Unlike your DD Periwinkle007 he loved them, in fact he went back to them in Y1 he loved them so much .

It was nice to get onto proper books from the library/amazon though I have to say, although I would equate this with about stage 10/Gold level I think.

However I think it best if it is child led. Even scheme books should have something the child enjoys should they not? Can your DD's teacher put her on something else Periwinkle if she doesn't enjoy the Magic Key?

[simpson]

Personally I think biff et al cater for a child who does not necessarily have access to other books (not school type ones) so they try to aid learning various skills etc (comprehension, setting, inference, decoding) but these skills IMO are far more enjoyable in non school books if that makes sense...

[mrz]

I think you need to remember that the ORT books were written over 30 years ago at the height of L&S in the UK and were something quite different then. The idea was they gave children actual short stories in each book. Saying that I can't abide Biff Chip and friends. The jokes in the illustrations are probably the best part of the book but do nothing to help a child learn to read.