Biff and Chip !

[Whizzz]

What sort of names are those ?
What's wrong with Janet and John ??

How are those books supposed to work then?

DS has his first book from school about pancakes. I would have thought they would have started with basic sounds not words like frying pan ?? [puzzled emoticon]

After a year ds still can't remember who is who - why can't they have gender specific names?
And Kipper!

I believe there is actually some logical reason behind the names. But I've never found out what it is! Does anyone know?

I found this on a site:

The ORT teacher's guide has a passage explaining the strange names. When Kipper was very young he had difficulty saying his name, so 'Christopher' came out as 'Kipper', and it soon stuck.
He also couldn't say his siter's name, and 'Barbara' came out as 'Biff' and again it soon stuck.
OK, these are all fairly reasonable explanations so far, I know of several families with permanently nick-named children.
But - they expect us to believe that Kipper couldn't say 'David' and so said 'Chip' instead!
'Ch' is quite a sophisticated sound, compared to 'David'.

But Christie's explanation was closer to what I was expecting.

On this ORT web page you can click on a link to download a guide to ORT for parents. It's got some great, helpful information about the series for parents.

But isn't it worse if they start to guess the word from the picture rather than the letters ?

i thought learning to read was hearing the word and linking it to the letters, the biff and chip books dont have words do they? how does that work? or is it more about speaking than reading???

Weeeeellll, there is another very long thread about this at the moment here
My (humble)opinion is that guessing is not a good start,and when DS1 started bringing home similar books to your DC, when they'd only covered half the alphabet, I was very confused. "Frying pan" is phonetically regular, as is "pancake", but they both involve phonetic rules that you don't teach to a very beginner reader.
The names Biff, Chip and Kipper have always seemed very strange to me too. Still, my boys have both loved the ORT books - I think the illustrations are very appealing.

Only the very first books have no words. dd has brought home a stage one book with the first "sight words" ie the character's names. the other thread has the phonics (ie Jolly phonics) vs. whole word (ie Oxford Reading Tree )approach to reading debate.

DS2 has started bringing home the first ORT books without words and we enjoy those together but his first word envelope is composed of a couple of words I would have expected like a and Mum but also all the names Chip, Kipper, Biff etc. He doesn't even know half of these letters so it's really difficult to fix the names in his mind when I can't get him to sound out, e.g. the "ch" blend in Chip.

Ch, sh, th etc are digraphs [two or more letters forming one sound [phoneme]. bl, cr st etc are blends.

When my DD began reading using this scheme we got a printed sheet with a much fuller story for me to read to her. The sentences in the book were included in this fuller text - she got on quite well with this. The longer story made it much more interesting and she liked to spot her words on my sheet.

Do all schools do this?

Yikes, just looked on the ORT website and seen what level the average year 2 child is at - Stage 6 to Stage 9.

My year 2 son is on Stage 2, the average stage of attainment at the end of the reception year. He has been taking home ORT books since he joined the school, age four.

Glad we have a parent/teacher meeting coming up. Not at all sure the ORT is working for my son.

Tigermoth I would be asking some hard questions at parents evening as my DD just started school in August (in Scotland so older she was 5 last May) and has graduated onto the Stage 2 books over the last week or - having been in school for about 8 weeks? I am presuming this is in line with the majority of children in her class - i.e. not accelerated at all.

Pippi, we get the accompanying story sheet too!

And I still can't understand how ORT and Jolly Phonics work together - DD does both at school - so if anybody can explain that I would be very grateful!

yes, I really beginning to think something needs to be done about my son's reading. I don't want to seem like a pushy, competitive parent, and I can see he is making progress...but still...

The school don't do jolly phonics as far as I know. I have posted about this on the thread catflap started recently. In the summer, we were on holiday with two experienced primary school teachers. Observing my son playing and doing some year l worksheets with me, they said he in a kinaesthetic leaner and needs to learn something like Jolly Phonics asap.

Are you sure it is him in particular Tigermoth or is it the pace at which he is being given the opportunity to learn?

Hope you get some answers anyway.

honestly tigermoth jolly phonics is soooooo good.

dd1 never learned it and went straight on to ORT - she's doing ok now (just about to start stage 4, shes in Yr 1) but she finds it impossible to 'sound out' words that she doesnt know. dd2 is not yet 3 and started jolly phonics a few weeks ago at kindergarten - she can already recognise the first set of letters s, i, a, t and make their sounds.

am cross that dd1 never did it.

pippi, we also seem to get the extended story sheet with questions and observations to make with child - judging by dd's first book anyway ! didn't get it with ds but he moved throught ht early stages fairly rapidly as he only started to read at school (in equivalent of year 1)when he was 5 1/2 and by the end of the year he was at Stage 6/7. Now 7 1/2 he still struggles to decode unfamiliar words as he never completed JP.

Whilst many children will 'get by' on being taught whole language methods, many will have problems that will manifest themselves as they get further on at school. Teaching to guess is no way to teach children who are starting to read. Give them the strategies they need to work words out for themselves from the beginning. Jolly Phonics gets my vote.

But when you teach a chid to read you use a huge variety of strategies to help them. You have to have sequencing in place and how to hold a book etc. Don't laugh because you can't always take this as a given! They have to recognise that pictures tell a story as much as the words and then actually recognise what words and letters are - EG: know that print is different from pictures. Then you have to have some phonic knowledge in place, but using picture clues is as important as using phonic clues. Then they use contextual clues - what does the word begin with? - what's happening in the story so far? - canyou make a sensible guess on that basis?
What works for one child, won't always work for another, which is why we use lots of strategies in infant schools.

we were told lots of strategies were used in our school, but pretty sure jolly phonics is not one of them. Of course I do not believe it is a magic cure-all, but I do want to know how exactly my son is being taught to read, and his teacher's views about jolly phonics.

I do agree with much of what you say.... until you get to the bit about picture clues being as important as phonic clues. A child who has been properly taught all the common letter-sound correspondences early on, has their own strategy for working out unfamiliar words and doesn't need to rely on guesswork.

Lara2 - can you please expand on why you believe picture clues are as important as phonic clues, please? I'd be interested in the rationale.

Also, your final comment "What works for one child, won't always work for another, which is why we use lots of strategies in infant schools" - how many other subjects does this happen with? Why don't some strategies work with some children? Can you really teach reading to children individually?