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 really liked them, so long as you were allowed to move through the scheme at a speed that suited your children. All of my kids loved the ORT and have been keen readers from pre-school.

And they were way better than One, Two, Three and Away - which was tedium in the extreme.

I did some learning in my own schooling with the Dragon Pirate Stories (by the same author of Roger Red Hat etc) - they were very exciting.

And the Griffin Pirate stories too.

I'd like to say that, thanks to whoever posted about the pair of hidden glasses, I'm now going to be going cross-eyed trying to see if it's true next time I hear a child read!

They're better than Peter and flipping Jane... today Peter goes waterskiing, and Jane - helps with the housework. Today Peter goes rockclimbing... Jane helps Mum hoover.

I'm now checking....its true about the glasses and also mum's dodgy makeup!!

lovin' them at a whole new level now

My DCs' school don't use them. Apparently many autistic children find it difficult to understand why some of the characters are named after food.

'Biff' & 'Kipper' were our slang names for a vagina at school .... couldn't read them with my son without sniggering