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?

So if your phonics scheme starts with SITDA, say, you can buy books from all the schemes, check which ones have only SITDA, label those level 1. And so on

Here in Australia most books are digital now the kids all have iPads and laptops now it's pretty standard in most schools

My kids school did send real books but they were frustratingly slow about changing them so we decided to do our own thing. We joined a subscription service where you get the books in the post and then post them back to get new ones. I’ve just had a a look on google and there seem to be a few things like this but I’m pretty sure this is the one we used.

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

This should be a national news story. Seriously. Who is your MP? Your best bet would be a Lib Dem one, or the Lib Dem education spokesman, as they haven’t got their hands dirty over this

Our primary school has physical books, a new one each week. I wouldn’t be at all happy if they wanted us to read online books instead, so I understand your surprise. Curling up in bed reading books every night is so important.

I went to a second-hand bookshop and brought my daughter a pile of reading books to have extra. It was 5 for £1. Our local library has lots as well. It's frustrating you'll have to do that yourself, but I would if I was in your shoes.

I"m a teacher and, although I agree physical books are much better, I am not surprised at the school doing this as the amount of reading books that are not returned or damaged is shocking!

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.

You don't not have to buy new books.

Our school basically spent a few months going through all their existing books and rematching them to the new scheme. It is possible, especially at stage 4/5 where the children have learned a lot of sounds.

An E book won't get lost or damaged and need to be replaced.

As others have said easier to provide continued access to many children with e books but if you are looking for a set of books to read at home we loved the Jolly Phonics material we also had the cd to do the songs in the car.

I’m a secondary school MFL teacher and I have to say, our students have Chromebooks and we use digital textbooks. It’s easier and a lot cheaper than physical books which get lost and tatty, and can be heavy to cart around. I know there’s less nostalgia and romance for a long-lost printed French textbook than primary school books, but most of the actual “Learning to read” Biff, Chipper etc books are so awful, I think people just can’t wait to get through them and onto proper books with stories.

It must depend on the school because mine are not long through primary years and always had books. Their old school is full of them and families donate extra too. School also used to take them to the village library once a week too.

We never used a screen for reading and always made it part of their bedtime routine which I wouldn’t want to do on a screen right before bed. Mine are still in secondary school and still all read physical books before bed both from us and brought home from school.

Understand points made by others but you can’t beat a proper book in my opinion - I love the smell and being able to turn the pages.

Our primary did send books home, but only changed them once every two weeks!

We subscribed to this
https://readingchest.co.uk/

Buy some phonics books or get some from the library. YANBU but it’s budget cuts because inevitably some books get damaged or lost. They are unbelievably expensive to buy matching the reading scheme. So schools just can’t afford it.

Yes I too would find this completely absurd. The books sent home at ours may be old / well-read but that’s to be expected. I can’t say this is a cost-cutting solution, what have they done with their stock of books?!

Christ. I knew it was bad but the education system is on its knees if it can’t afford to give kids actual books to learn from. Some kids won’t have books at home or parents who take them to libraries. Books should be a core part of what you get at school. If schools can’t provide books for kids, things really are fucked.

@Peridoteage OP says her child has just started reception so the books will be limited to the words and sounds they have learnt so far.

When DS started Primary (few years ago now he is at uni) they were just introducing phonics system but the books they brought home bore no resemblance to what they were learning (Biff and Chip, so we were always having to teach him sounds etc that he had not yet covered in school which I thought was odd). Makes much more sense (especially early on) for books to match what they are learning especially for children who might not pick up reading easily

@NameChangedForThis2025 they are! And teachers have been saying this for years on here

We subscribed to Reading Chest for a slightly different reason (DS kept getting non phonics books home and being praised for guessing). Can you afford that or else a new set of books from eBay? You can dole them out one by one to replicate the excitement of getting a new book each week.

And parents who can't afford tablets etc? The financial burden of reading has been passed to parents and I don't think that's ok.

I mean it's simple if you can afford it but many can't. If you have more than one child now each needs a tablet or they have to wait and can't read simultaneously with their older sibling, dad or GP. Then add in the maths homework and other subjects.

Screen time has been added to significantly by schools expectations.

We still get physical books and I wouldn’t be happy if my children were learning to read on a screen. Some of the books we get are a bit damaged and clearly very old but they do the job.

Local charity shops are your best bet (avoid the big national ones who charge more). We sell kids books at 49p and have so many phonics readers in currently, families donate them back once they are past that stage too so more kids will get the benefit.

I do think this phonics obsession is a huge mistake though, i didn’t learn with phonics (we learned whole words then) and did absolutely fine, fluently reading by six, my elder dd was taught to read by me as overseas, reading properly by 5, no silly phonics - my younger dd however was in school in uk and struggled terribly to learn to read because her school used then synthetic phonics scheme, eventually at 7 I spent the summer teaching her my way and she learned to read. We all have dyslexia!

I'd suggest discussing with school. I think everyone has covered why this is happening because of the requirement to have a new commercially driven phonics scheme. However, when as parents we all raised concerns about e books (screen time was my main worry) the school shared with the pta how much the books cost. I think the pta specifically raised circa 10k to buy all the books- school budgets are limited, so if it really matters to you, offer to do something about it for them (appreciate that's not always possible, but it's one of those things where the school budget isn't infinite and if parents don't have time/energy to help fundraise for it then it's unreasonable to expect that 10-20k to come from the tight school budget alone).

That happened in a school here, the parents revolted and the PTA funded new books. Would your PTA be able to help? Or could someone apply for a grant for the books specifically?
Sad state of affairs.

My DD is in Reception and was given her first phonics book to take home yesterday , Rhino Readers . The school have said how expensive it was to buy the physical books and if they are lost we will need to pay £5 . Im glad she has a physical one to be honest