School don't send home books any more

[Applesandbananaz]

My DC's school have done away with reading books and instead children will learn to read on tablets.

All books will be available to read online only. AIBU to think this is terrible? We don't have a tablet and don't want our children reading on screens. I don't know how to approach the school. Am sure loads of children will be reading on their parents' phones

Ours is the same, they have reading books in the classroom but they don't come home. Instead we have an app. I don't have a tablet and don't want my child reading a book on my phone (for a multitude of reasons) so we don't do the assigned school reading at home.
Instead we simply read books we have at home and also visit the local library to choose others.
I'm not happy about it but presumably it is cost saving.

Surely you can borrow children’s books from the local library if you can’t buy them for yourself? Otherwise I expect the school will let you use a tablet, even if it means you need to stay in the building before or after school to do so.

It’s likely your child will be reading online whilst at school as well.

Our primary school has homework that needs a computer and lots of reading from KS2 upwards is done on kindles. Pretty much all secondary schools here require children to have their own iPads and they are essential for their learning.

Just read different books. I'm a teacher and my dc didn't read the school books because they were terrible.

Schools are doing this because they have no money. Now they won't have to replace lost or damaged books and changing them takes a long time.

Ours send home books.

Parents in my school are constantly complaining about students having to carry books to and from school. We have been encouraged to not assign work directly from books, unless they can access the books online. It's a pain.

Ours send books. I would not like electronic books.

I agree it is really sad that they won't be sending books home anymore.

Although, I've worked in schools and I can understand why...a few years ago my school spent thousands of pounds getting all new sets of books to go along side the new phonics scheme. Within a few weeks so many were missing and damaged.

As others suggested, could you visit a local library to get some physical books with them? Perhaps you could get some nice chapter books and then they can do their homework ones on the tablet?

The school have loads of books, a change in reading scheme now means those books are redundant. It's a sorry state of affairs and horribly wasteful

Same - it’s a cost thing coupled with the sheer carelessness of most children and parents, they were losing several books a week to “leaky water bottle”, “can’t find it”, “baby brother ripped the pages out”…

Add in the need to precisely match the phonics teaching scheme when the guidance changed (there are now loads of rules about children only getting books that they have been taught every sound in) and school were looking at having to buy an entire replacement set of books for reception and y1, and then replace the endlessly damaged ones after that. It was totally unaffordable.

Any parent lacking a suitable device can either borrow one from school for a deposit or their child is given print-outs. They have paper books in the classroom but they aren’t lent out.

I don’t like it, the phonics lead doesn’t like it, but it’s the only way school can affordable meet the requirements put on it.

State schools cannot insist that a household provides tech.

If you do not want your DC on a screen, or simply do not have one available, the school either has to accept that reading cannot happen in that form for that pupil (and you're unlikely to be the only family in that boat) and will have to either live with it not being done or provide a work-around.

You can support your DC by the traditional methods of reading with them and to them. A lot. From books.

Our primary has books that come home, all the schools in the trust do. I asked at Open days.

They will do some online reading as they progress up the school but there is a focus on actual books.

Ours also don’t just do one reading scheme, they have loads of books from all different ones and mix them up. DD is reception and had 3 sent home for half term (all different brands but all “Red” as she’s at the start).

I don’t like it, the phonics lead doesn’t like it, but it’s the only way school can affordable meet the requirements put on it

Maybe the phonics lead could look in to a different scheme that is less prescriptive. Remember phonics had been the way reading was taught for centuries, before the blip of other methods that began in the 1960s/70s, and was done so very effectively without the need for complex schemes with strict rules.

My son (reception) is sent home with one book a week, however his homework is often reading an online book. I much prefer him reading a proper book.

All the schemes are prescriptive. Thank the government for that.

There are so few "learn to read" phonics books in our local libraries. Once they get to a certain stage the library is great but it takes my children months to get there

This is such a weird comment - why does one random phonics lead from one random school be responsible for this- if you this to be the case speak to your child’s phonics lead at school but it’s a bit of a weird statement to make in this context as she is just one lady she has no control over the entire countries phonics curriculum 🙈

I would recommend getting the complete set of songbirds phonics for home. I think they’re much better stories than most of the school books we’ve had and my children made much more progress with them. Usborne first readers are nice to have but I think they jump up very quickly in difficulty.

My eldest had the online subscription during Covid and it was rubbish really. She didn’t mind doing it because there was some sort of treehouse to build if you collected points through answering comprehension questions but it takes away from sitting cuddled up and reading. I tried it for a week and then hit Amazon.

Mines at secondary now but it makes me sad that some kids don’t get reading books. They may not have any at home.

I didn’t do it in the end but also was looking at badger learning as from what I remember it’s like a rental scheme where you pay a subscription and they send you a selection of banded books that you send back and swap. There will be other similar services if the library isn’t great. I’d also say, the school shouldn’t be just ignoring all the old books, they could still send them home alongside the phonics scheme online ones.

I wasn't taught to read through phonics in the 1950s.
Needless to say I'm not a fan of phonics as spelling correctly still has to be taught 🤔

Are you sure? Our library has loads. I know at least one library where the phonics books are in a different place to the picture/ story books so it might be worth double checking.

Yes it’s not ideal at all but really what do you expect with the current budgets? I assume your kids get sent a general reading book home that you can read together? Schools are barely surviving paying their teachers let alone additional reading books to send home.
They spend thousands on a scheme of books (and most often not enough for one of each stage etc for each child). Those books often don’t get returned, are damaged, go missing. They don’t have any extra money to replace them. My kid’s school does the same and I would also prefer a reading book sent home but I understand why this isn’t feasible. We read the book on the iPad. But I have also bought the set of the phonic Songbird books above for £10 on FB. You could approach the school but don’t expect any changes.

Yep, it was a horrendous waste in many schools but the government mandated schools must choose from a list of a handful of phonics schemes and for many schools that meant buying the books to go with them.

My local library doesn't have a huge collection of children's books but they have a big collection across the county which you can order in from. At some libraries there is a charge which can make this prohibitively expensive, but in my county it's free so worth checking this out if you haven't already.

Isn't primary homework optional? Can you just say no and join the local library to practise together?

Incidentally the Apple awarded private school near here doesn't teach on iPads until year 3.