It's the fashion to look down on ORT, yet, despite Biff and Chip being the butt of many a joke, the scheme was used successfully for several years in our school, and was broadly suitable for most of the children. They enjoyed it, and the consistency of growth of vocabulary and repetition meant that they would move to the next book secure in the knowledge that they wouldn't be faced with several new words that they weren't familiar with. The children really enjoyed moving on in the scheme as well. Some children didn't really 'get on' with it, and so would be put on a different scheme more suited to them. Common sense dictated that they would follow whatever scheme they were on, working steadily through the books, while at the same time having a range of non-scheme story books to take home in their bags too.
My point is that there is nothing wrong with ORT. Neither is there much wrong with reading schemes per se - provided it is used consistently alongside good teaching. The difficulties that have arisen in our school and left many parents wondering what on earth is going on and children floundering is that colour-banding is now fashionable, where different reading schemes are banded together according to levels of difficulty. This means that children have any old book in the colour, rather than progressing consistently the way individual schemes were designed to do.
The 'theory' behind colour banding is to broaden the children's experience of vocabulary, but in my view it has damaged the confidence of many beginner reader and slowed down their progress.
Of course, children do need to look at a wide range of books, but this should be done ALONGSIDE the scheme, which is really a tool, and a very good one if used properly.
IMO you don't need to buy your own reading scheme but just find books for you and your child to share. Leave it to the school to do the scheme.