why the heck are the kids called stupid genderless names in ORT?

[Greythorne]

Just started ORT with DD1......and I cannot believe how rubbish bizarre they are! Maybe there are some teachers / experts who have explanations for:

1. why the kids are not called Jane, Fred and Martin (or whatever). Where do Biff, chip and Kipper come from? I can't remember which one is which, which is the girl. Very confusing.

1. The questions at the end are not very good. They are pretty vague and yet don't really allow full answers. Even I struggle to answer them, sometimes!

1. The hidden clues in the pictures are really feeble. In the Usborne books, the hidden ducks are much better.

Any ideas why this system is so beloved?

I once told DD's teacher that anyone who calls their kids Biff, Chip and Kipper should be locked up, not have a giant series of books written about them.

Oh lord I could never get the hang of Chipper, Kiff and Bip. It was such a relief to leave them all behind in the end.

I had no clue who they were, whether they were boys or girls or what the hell was happening.

The Magic Key stories seem to go off into some weird parallel universe. I can only assume the writers came up with them late one night having taken something other than an aspirin. I sure felt I needed an asiprin after reading them.

Biff is Barbara, Chip is David and Kipper is Christopher.
Why? I have no idea.

The backstory about the names isn't in one of the scheme books as such, it's in the teachers' guide. I think from what I vaguely remember (I didn't delve too deeply but it was more of a "what the hell were they smoking" moment that made me look it up) it's to do with Kipper being a really little kid and being unable to say his siblings' names so it stuck (at least in the Kipper/Christopher, Biff/Barbara case). I've got it in my head that Chip is David as well from somewhere - but can't remember the reasoning behind that one.

I still quite like the ORT though - for all its faults and the fact the original core of it hasn't stood up well to the move back towards phonics (but like most things in teaching, everything comes and goes out of fashion in time), they've still got the better selection of characters compared to some of the other reading schemes I see around.

I always thought Biff was Elizabeth, which completely made sense in my mind, and I could then recall who was who

And yes Biff was reading a book about Pirates, despite not liking pirates becuase it was THE SCHOOL BOOK SHE HAD BEEN GIVEN to read of course. the same reason you were

I agree about it being ahrd to write an engaging book with so few words, and they DO succeed there
The anti ORT snobbery by parents bores me slightly if I am honest

me too, I love'em...simply for the fun they give my kids and for the way my dd wants to keep on reading them ...and for the great pictures!

My DSs really like them so I'm not complaining.

I like Gran best.

Nadim's real name is Nigel

Much better than the Janet and John books I remember. Janet always helping her mum in the kitchen etc......

I can remember janet 'looked on' a lot whilst wearing an immaculate white dress...

Funny thread. I usually find myself questioning the mum's regular wardrobe malfunctions instead though.

And the mum's massive lips. And the Gran's. Despite the gender neutral names of the kids all the adult females have Angelina-style lips.

The best one is where Mum and Gran take the kids on holiday to Scotland and Gran plays a joke on Mum by making a Loch Ness Monster. It gets seen by the locals and someone from the TV comes to interview them. I swear the man interviewing is Jeremy Beadle!!!

And the one with the babysitter. If your babysitter turned up looking like this one, you'd bolt all the doors and call the police.

I think Chip is David after his father, called Chip as in "chip off the old block". But I might be imagining that because I know one Fathersname Junior who is known as Chip.

Jeremy Beadle also turns up in the queue of people trying to make the princess laugh in the one (surprisingly) where they have to make the princess laugh.

I have read in an interview with the author that he chose the names Chip, Biff and Kipper because they have no connection with a particualr class or geographical region. He also chose to use twins to ensure equality as in earlier programmes the boy used to dominate the story (e.g. Peter and Jane).

And yes, he said that he chose the names because he thought it would be annoying for children to keep coming across their own name in the stories.

DS (Y1) uses Rigby Star at school but came across ORT in the library and loves it. We are reading the English and German version now.

I like these books. I hated some of the other ones, they at least had humour.

We actually had most problems with the politically correct strand, it is very hard to decode books about something totally alien. Such as Adam going to the school at the Mosque on Saturdays. Something outside the experience of pretty much any children in this patch of suburbia. Although they did like the story about the goat, and chicken pox in India.

I also like Biff, who is always complaining when people try to tell her she can't do things because she is a girl such as "Girls can't be knights". Actually Mum has improved, as in some of the early ones I do have the urge to give her a make-up lesson.

I think it works as nicknames. How many of you have children that when first talking couldn't say other siblings or their own names properly? My 3 year old will sit and tell his own story version of my 5 year old's book using the character names already. They become familiar and help with their confidence in reading. They are easy to pronounce and they get used to the look of the word so it flows in their reading. As does ' "oh, no" said (insert Biff, Chip or Kipper as appropriate!)'. It's the one page i've never had to sound out! [hgrin]

Are these the very same books that have been around since the 80s? I thought they would have long died out now. The kids in my class used to hate them and take the mickey out of their stupid names and retreat to Each Peach Pear Plum territory :o

right-i-ho!

Are they up there in your top 5, with 'war', 'famine', 'poverty' and 'disease' then....

:o Stewie

I used to have great fun with the ORT books in the early days. I'd point at individual words, thus making the DC say 'Dad is a big Kipper' etc. Much more interesting for all concerned

You're right Stewie, I stand corrected...I was momentarily confused by the particularly strong language you used...I see that we are indeed, only talking about childrens books...thank you!