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

Library, then. Second hand books. Save for a tablet. There's more than one way to skin a cat. I remember the days when I had (in total) 50p 'free' money weekly and bought my child a book for 49p. Things that 'aren't affordable' are holidays, clothes and shoes with designer names, alcohol, nights out, cigarettes or vapes...

I’ve been a Governor in schools where food banks were the norm not holidays or nights out. The local library was poorly stocked but the reading books from the school were old but well looked after by the children - an IPad or Kindle wasn’t necessary or affordable.

I've worked in schools (two of them) where tablets were provided for each pupil to use, including at home. They had to stop that scheme because so many disappeared. I know about poverty, Governor.

That's nuts!

Using a particular phonics scheme shouldn't mean the kids can't read any other books though! Our infant school had books from loads of different schemes, grouped by difficulty into colour bands. With a mix of pure phonics and books with high frequency words. It isn't possible to learn to read through pure phonics, because so many common words don't fit phonics. There has to be some sight reading of whole words, and use of context /pictures to guess at some words. That's how reading works.

We have little wandle and I really hate it compared to the scheme my eldest did as I can compare directly. Eldest did letters and sounds but had a new reading book home every night and at the start of year 1 really started to fly and was on chapter books by the end. They read the little wandle book ten million times in school and get one home each week from the old book collections. eldest was getting orange at this point of y1- youngest is getting yellow despite being a better reader than her sister because they haven’t done split digraphs yet and don’t want to get into trouble with ofsted. Eldest was taught that in reception by her teacher as she was pressing ahead and they didn’t want to hold her back.

I just ignore it and read my own thing with her- she wouldn’t be progressing as much at all if I was just leaving it to the reading scheme and school. I think she’ll get to the same point but it’ll be down to me helping at home and definitely not little wandle.

We’re on Little Wandle but DD gets 2 books, the group book, and her own book. Her own book changes every 3 school days. Although she is in her own group of 1 as she can read and the others are further back. That changes weekly I think.

She’s in Reception but taught in a class with Y1. There’s only 15 total though with 5 in Reception. They aren’t holding her back, she’s reading things they haven’t yet been “taught”.

Yep, I work in a school. We've just spent £10k on a new phonics scheme and books (it's not even a big school) and they aren't allowed home! Would you lend out something you've spent a fortune on with no guarantee they'll come back?

Read something from the library, why can't they do both? I don't think I'll be reading on tablets with mine when she's older so will probably just read other books.

The new schemes they follow are incredibly prescriptive. The books gave to be decodable by the sounds they have beem taught so they are linked to the scheme.

The reading framework even advises against banding books by colours.

Appreciate all the people saying 'just go to the library' probably have a solution focussed mindset, but in answer to the OP's question...Yes, I think this is terrible.

Sadly would assume not the schools first choice. Maybe they've been forced into it by higher policies? Not overwhelmingly surprising given budget constraints etc, and can understand/ appreciate pp's point that it's due to budgets etc as books are a big expense for a school and sadly don't always get respected. However, doesn't make it any less dismal that something as joyful and transformational as reading could for many now also be something done on a screen. Not every kid is going to have a family who have the time/inclination to take them to the library. Equally some children won't have access to tablets for various reasons, or may not have the budget to be buying their own versions of the books.

Reading has always been a means of escapism to me, as a child and as an adult. Feels like a real shame that decisions like this might prevent that being the case for todays children.

If you are in Suffolk, it's free to order in any books in the whole of the library catalogue.

You have to be a bit organised but you can get them all delivered in to your local library. Suffolk libraries are also pretty great at buying books in if there are particular things you want.

I agree that it's a real shame and that it's a problem for children who don't have a library they can access easily, either due to their location or due to their parents being unable to facilitate visiting.

@StopStartStop we choose not to have a tablet for our children to use because we want to delay screen time for as long as possible. So much research being done at the moment into the damage phones/screens are doing to young brains. Plus the school have reading books from the old scheme, they are just choosing not to send them home any more.

They should have been doing that for the last 20 odd years though. And if the school is using little wands then virtually any reading scheme that is aligned to letters and sounds (and lots were) ought to be usable providing somebody takes the time to organise the books.

We were sadly pulled up for doing just that. We carefully went through our old perfectly good decodable books and aligned them with the new scheme we had to buy and were told this was not OK.

The deputy head, who had spent a lot of time on this was very frustrated.

Well, I completely disagree that this is an issue. the phonics books the childrne have to read as part of reception/year 1 are, as others have pointed out, expensive and not well looked after by families. Reading in a specific reading app, or on a kindle, is still reading. And even if you're terrified about the screen damaging their eyes, we're talking 15 minutes, tops, a day.

Personally, i really don't understand this ridiculous attitude that reading a book in an app is bad and is actually "screen time" and that reading the exact same book in paper format is fine.

I do see why people don't necessarily want tablets being used for hours on end, and it's why I bought DD a paperwhite kindle - so it's easier on the eyes - but reading online, assuming you can protect the eyes or its for limited time, is not a problem.

That would be frustrating it takes a ton of work. That reading review seems to have gone a bit mental over this. I doubt it’s what the authors meant but it doesn’t stop LA advisors and Ofsted inspectors interpreting it as only use the books provided by the scheme.