How do the OLD oxford reading tree stages and bands work?

[Dtbain]

My daughter is using the Collins Big Cat Phonics books at school, but at home we have an old (10-15 years old) set of the Oxford Learning Tree books.

I've noticed that the the old OLT book have both "stages" and colours "bands", and that these overlap, e.g. the yellow band books appears in stages 2, 3, and 4. They've changed this in more recent editions, but it's the old edition that we have.

I guess the main question is: What is the difference between band and stage in the old OLD system? Someone told me that increasing bands indicate complexity (e.g. length and complexity of sentences) whereas increasing stages indicate harder and harder vocabulary. Is that right?

And, relatedly, should one work one's way through one stage, then the next, or instead follow one band through the various stages, and then the next band?

I could make this all much easier by buying the Collins' books, but it seems a shame not to make use of the old ORT books given we've got them.

(I was going to ask whether there is a way of mapping Collins onto the old ORT system, but, given the above, my guess it there isn't!)

Thanks so much for any advice!

We're just bumping this and hopefully someone will be along soon to give you some useful advice.

I found this table useful when I had a similar query about a very old reading scheme that DD’s school were using

stmarysrcmidd.rochdale.sch.uk/files/files/ortbookbands.pdf

In my experience the ort stages increase in complexity, length in pages and words per page, and vocabulary. The “book bands” have come in later so schools know which box to put them in if they organise their reading scheme this way. They mostly line up but not always.

To be honest op I think the only way of finding out is to rub the magic key.

On reflection does it really matter. There's so much stuff that's better to read and one of the reasons I didn't have a third was because I never, ever wanted to read about Biff, Chip and Kipper again.

OhTheRoses this is also very true. My dc are at an international school abroad. Turns out they have ORT in the local language too. So 3dc reading all the same Biff, Chip and Kipper adventures twice each.

OP If you want to use them, they won’t match up to her phonics learning anyway as they are not a phonics based scheme so you might as well start at the beginning and see how she gets on.

This page - scroll down the page is one school's breakdown of reading ages for ORT book bands. It's just a rough guide, of course.

Thanks all. Very helpful!