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

It is not the school's fault. Blame ofsted. They insist that schools follow a government accredited phonics scheme and that includes children only reading books from the scheme where the child knows each sound making the whole process incredibly expensive as well as laborious, unnecessarily complicated and boring to the pupils.

Ours do supply tablets on loan to families who aren't able to access them so it might be worth asking if you need some help as you won't be the only ones struggling.

Time spent reading with children & what they are reading is more important than whether it's on paper or tablet. It's a sensible decision for a lot of schools as can access more books at lower cost

Libraries & charity shops are good sources of children's 'real' books if you want them.

I do understand that, I’m an ex teacher myself. The government approved list is also quite expansive.
What is the schools scheme op?

Probably cheaper to have e-scheme of books and parents can’t lose them

The list is relatively long but if you didn't use a scheme on it before, it costs a lot to overhaul.

I accept it's expensive but actually the books are really varied and are well made - they've obviously put a lot of effort into catering for different interests, the illustrations are great, mix of fact and fiction. They are certainly no worse in terms of story than other reading scheme books - they're always a bit limited in the early stages. The children are all learning really well too - every child in the class can read all the sounds which is a big surprise to me having attended schools where a good proportion still couldn't really read by secondary.

The new one is Little Wandle

They're complaining about their kids carrying books??

They had parents who cared about school property and would bring books back. I’d say about 20% of the books that get given out either don’t come back or when they do they are in such a state as to be unusable.

I knew it would be Little Wandle! The problem if you send home a set of books to a group and someone doesn't bring a copy back, then you don't have enough for each child in the next group. I can understand where the school is coming from.

I bet this is Michael Gove's fault some how

Then have a 3 strikes and you're out rule. 3 strikes and your child gets no more books and doesn't learn to read

Completely agree with the comments re Songbirds and Usborne.

The reasons will be all those outlined above: cost-saving, the joys of 'fidelity to the scheme' and books being lost/ruined at home.

Our school's chosen scheme is Little Wandle too, but thankfully we still have real books sent home (and DD js now in Year 2 and pretty much done with it now anyway). If they reverted to digital I'd refuse to read the online books and just top up with library and home books instead. I do feel sorry for families without the resources to do this though - there's so much evidence now that reading on a screen is inferior to reading physical books in terms of information processing and long-term recall.

And yes - Songbirds much better. With Little Wandle we keep getting the same books repeated as they're so expensive the school couldn't afford enough sets to have a genuine range of reading material.

This is so sad.

Our school does the phonics books scheme with normal books for Reception, but year 1 online- however we still get two books home per week they just aren’t from the scheme. Other years also have lots of brand new books.
I think it’s just this phonics scheme as they can only afford to buy so many sets. It costs thousands. And you can blame the gov for making them choose one.

Some of our parents refuse to do the online ones. I’d raise it with the school. But you may find they read normal books in school it’s just they don’t send them home because some parents are useless and loose or ruin them.
Id press for them in Reception though. I don’t want my kid reading on a screen at that age.

This. So much money lost and so many children frustrated when the next in a series of reading books isn't there because other children/their families didn't give a damn about looking after or returning the book they were provided with.

We have Little Wandle too and ebooks only so definitely a theme emerging.
Interesting to hear this is more common on this scheme. I wonder what other benefits it has as it must have attracted the schools for a reason in spite of the cost of print books.

Is this primary or secondary? My daughter's school still send home books (primary). I'd be really disappointed if that changed.

Primary - reading scheme

https://readingchest.co.uk/how-it-works/

Mine’s at uni now but we used this between reception and yr 1 and it brought her reading on so quickly. We went to library too but she liked the school type books she could read.

I read on kindle - is there a child version of that that would work for the school books.

Schools can't afford new books.
Schools prefer real books.
Books get damaged and lost when sent home and we can't afford to replace them.

Blame funding and parents who lose them/ allow toddlers to destroy them / treat them carelessly.

They probably didn’t have a choice but change scheme. The books they have probably match the phonics programme they were using before but the last government mandates a list of approved phonics programmes so if yours wasn’t on it you had to change which may have necessitated changing the reading scheme too.

I’d have put money on you saying this. What were they using before and what scheme were the books they were sending home.