School not sending physical books home for phonics learning

[LoftyPlumFox]

I might just be massively behind the times but... my daughter has just started Reception and we are expected to read online books with her to practice phonics. We don't have a tablet at home so this would have to be on a laptop. Am I being unreasonable to expect a physical book to be sent home so we can read it together on the sofa rather than on a laptop screen?? Or is this the norm at primary schools these days?

No, but you did start talking about banning books.

I am an early years teacher and we use the ebooks. As a teacher, I hate it and wish we could send home real books. We did initially when we first started with our phonics scheme. Our school invested literally thousands in all of the books we needed to run the scheme properly but within 18 months, they were all lost or damaged beyond repair. A combination I think of fairly poor quality books, and an extreme lack of care. They were also regularly left at home, or returned late which meant they were not available to go home or even in school with children who needed to read them in their reading session. We have had to move to the ebooks because the subscription is so much more affordable than having to replace physical books.

I think it’s not just an issue of money but also time. So much easier to push out a new title online and also monitor how many times it has been viewed, when and by whom. I completely understand this, but we have told my child’s school that we will not be doing this. We visit the local library and pick up second hand books. Research suggests comprehension is vastly increased reading from a paper book and this is especially important with inexperienced readers. The school is happy for us to plough our own furrow on this - we are reading at home which is the aim. I think the online offering could be a useful resource for some people but it is not for us.

In our school we do send home physical books but we are so limited as so many have been lost/not returned. Phonics goes from reception to approx year 2 (although you will still get older years on the scheme we use) so it becomes very difficult to find copies of the right level for each child. Parents also complain when the same book comes home twice (usually because there is no other option). We even started the school year in some cases having to give out book 6 out of 12 as there were no lower books for that level. If the child remains in that level for a term then it will be inevitable they have to have the same book again. It would be easier for books to be accessed online to avoid this situation.

When the government decided a few years back that the free 'Letters and Sounds' phonics scheme that many schools used wasn't good enough, they had a choice. They could have...:-

1. Withdrawn 'Letters and Sounds', updated it to something that they deemed good enough, then release it free to schools again.

1. Tell schools that they now had to buy a phonics scheme that was on their list of 'approved' schemes. This state-sanctioned list changes yearly, so schools might buy a new scheme and then a year later, it's withdrawn.

I will leave you guess which the Conservative government chose. It's worth thinking who owns a lot of these companies as some people somewhere are making a hell of a lot of money from school budgets across the country...

As Ofsted now expect complete 'fidelity' to the scheme, schools all had to match all their reading scheme books to the phonic scheme and have had to spend thousands to buy a whole new system.

We had to spend £11,000 all in, and we still have very few books in the grand scheme of things. The online books come as part of the subscription the schools already pay into, that's why we use those for the children.

We literally don't have any money now to buy books to go home.

Please don't blame the schools, it's not what we wanted.

My son’s school are using physical books still, thankfully.

l wouldn’t be happy at all either! it’s not the same physically turning pages pointing at the words following along with pointing are all different on physical page. Not to mention how much trickier it would be for some dyslexic learners on the screen.

What phonics scheme is it?

Oh that's heartbreaking

Why don’t you borrow the books required from the library? I also prefer physical books and yes, school these days don’t send anything to practice on.

And those little thin books that are sent home cost around £4-£5 each. We do still send them home but have started having to charge for missing books as we couldn’t afford to replace them, so many went missing or came back in a dreadful condition.

Not the norm. My kids get a new phonics book every Friday.
What a shame.
They have done a couple of fundraising drives for phonics books and library books in the 4 and a bit years my kids have been there though and you have to pay if you lose a book.

Yes i read that article on Substack as well.

https://jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-of-the-post-literate-society-aa1

If anyone is interested. It's a thought provoking read.

You would not believe the number of books that go missing, are returned wet or destroyed in some other way. Schools simply cannot afford to replace books every year - they cost of fortune from the phonics scheme being taught. Books need to be carefully matched to the sounds taught, so you have to have enough physical books to send home. Last year I resorted to photocopying books - they had to be printed in grey scale, so not exactly exciting for an early reader. Sadly some parents simply don’t care and wouldn’t even apologise for losing or destroying a book. It makes me SO sad that children are having to read off a screen - not getting to turn the pages etc.

To be fair being in a free society means we have access to local libraries. Use them.

We have tried photocopying books. It’s time consuming. We send home actual books, they don’t come back and at the end of every term we never have a full set of books for bags.

So maybe you could print them at home? Go to a library?

If it was my child I’d probably fix it myself.

So many books are returned damaged or not returned at all. It costs schools thousands to replace them so e books, while not ideal, allow everyone to access them without them being destroyed

We did get physical books in reception a couple of years ago but it was clearly difficult for the school to get them all brought back in as they tried to implement a fine if you didn’t bring it back. Sometimes we’d have photocopied phonics books as there simply wasn’t enough to go round. I went on eBay and bought second hand full sets of phonics books and never again bothered with the school ones. They never sent home the right ability anyway. So fill a bookshelf with your own then when you’re ready to go up a level you already have them there waiting.

It’s so sad to hear how badly the books are being treated. Our tiny rural school spent loads of money buying the RWI books about three years ago, and we have had every book available at the right time, and in immaculate condition. I realise more and more how incredibly lucky we are to have such a wonderful little school. Somehow, despite massive financial constraints, they seem to be doing almost everything right.

I don’t think primary school children should be doing screen based homework. I wouldn’t be happy about this either. Can you ask around other parents and see if anyone else agrees? I would also tell the teachers that you don’t have the kit to do screen based homework and you would like physical books. We have to stand up against this shift to doing everything on screens.

Or demand a decent education for our children!

My DD has just started in year R and luckily the school has a real focus on reading and phonics. The get sent home with a different reading book each week and can pick a book from the school library each week for parents to read to them for pleasure.

Yes it’s absolutely ridiculous to expect kids to only read from a device. It’s putting a barrier up between the child and the parent and, unless they are going to provide all the kids with iPads, it is putting an extra barrier up for poorer families.

You are right OP.

It's very unfair to kids without access to tech.

It's not great for kids using too much tech.

But mostly, the research tells us that reading online isn't the same as reading physical books, for whatever reason.

It always surprises me how many MNers seem to have easy access to libraries.

Our council's were hit hard in austerity and it's only got worse since.

The children with most need to be supplied with physical books will be the ones least able to access them in other ways. It's depressingly common for children to not own a single book.

I also would not count on the idea that e-books are cheaper. They certainly aren't for libraries.

I'm so done with this tablet batshittery. They need to come out of schools completely. Ed tech bros have brainwashed politicians.

Only today I read Edinburgh schools are withdrawing them at great expense, after an even greater expense of buying them. All schools should follow.

You must request books and they have to give them to your child.

Money probably is the issue. Ebooks don't get tatty as children finger them, lost, eaten by the dog, wee'd on by the cat or drawn over by toddler sibling! They never need replacing.

Something else to consider: There is really no need for children to have special books from a "phonics scheme." Companies that produce these programs love for us to believe that but it's totally unnecessary. There are all kinds of books for young kids to read available used or even in printable versions if online if your main resource.

But why are you not charging parents for a replacement book? Or getting them all to chip in in September, deposit money, refundable only if all books are back by the end of term. It's not that hard, certainly better for the children to have physical books and this should be a priority. It's about how to make this happen, but that's a separate point. There's overwhelming evidence in favour of ditching screens in schools.