Books for teaching DD to read

[Sticki]

I would like to get a set of books to read with DD and wondered which ones are best? Ive heard of the Oxford Reading Tree ones.

To explain, we dont live in the UK and DD will go to a local non English speaking school. She will learn to read at school in the local language but we will return to the UK at some point in the future. We have been doing alot of basic reading and writing at home, but I think we need better books than just our old ones.

Any tips gratefully received! I dont have any teaching experience, and am wary of confusing her with what she will be doing at school.
Thanks

Don't use ORT to teach her to read is the best advice I can offer. There are lots of good schemes out there ORT should be left until children can read (if used at all)

We have used the BOB books which are funny and have imaginative illustrations - all black and white though.
www.amazon.co.uk/Books-First-Bobby-Lynn-Maslen/dp/0439845009
I\ve always found the oxford reading tree stuff to be unimaginably dull although 4 1/2 year old dd likes to get the out of the library.
You could try ordering a few of the ORT ones to see if you get on with them.
DD also loves the old 'Dick and Jane' series!! I find them quite funny to read in a retro way and they do get the job done if you keep on with them.
good luck

sorry to crash but why do you advise against ORT mrz?

Well apart from being deadly dull ... the structure doesn't support beginner readers. Once a child has some level of reading competence they are OK (but still dull)

A lot of kids seem to like 'The magic key' ort books but they are not for complete beginners. My son loved the illustrations,the concept of the magic key and the characters!

Read write inc by Ruth Miskin re phonics based and start really simply.

here?

if you must go for ort buy the floppys phonics ones

floppy

weyhey it worked was a bit worried hence ?

You could always look at the free e books

Jolly phonics do a series of books which are suitable for beginners.

Was reading this thread as I too would like to get some books for my reception dd to read. Mainly because she gets ORT books home from school and most of them are a bit rubbish.

Just wanted to ask if you think the Ruth Miskin books are good for those who don't use Read Write Ink at school? (She does synthetic phonics though). Sorry for hyjack Sticki!

If you you are going to buy Read Write Inc buy the black and white readers as they are a lot cheaper.

That is interesting about the Oxford Reading Tree books. DD has SEN and uses these at school; bit worried now that the schools should be using something else.

But I think buying enough early readers to teach your child to read will cost you a fortune.

hi again,
sorry to bug you mrz, but you seem pretty informed..what would you recommend then to help a 4-5 yr old with reading? I'm using a number of methods - phonics, whole word and guessing. Dd loves stories but I sense she is getting a little confused although her reading is about average for her age I think.
Do you have any suggestions (apart from ORT) about what to steer her towards? We do enjoy the BOB books which are largely phonics based, but will be through those shortly. Besides, it would be nice to have some other stuff to mix into BOB..
Thanks

I use Songbirds, Rigby Star, Big Cat and quite like Ragtag Rhymes (Dr Suess like phonics ) for school and find them effective and the children seem to enjoy the stories.

thanks.

I taught my then 4.5 yo to read (after he begged me to, I wasn't keen to do so pre school) and am now doing the same with his younger brother (just turned 4).

I read alot of threads here, and followed a lot of very helpful threads. Once we'd got going we used Dandelion Readers, which are is a brilliant, decodable reading scheme which I can't rate highly enough. My elder son (now 5.5) has ORT at school, which he quite enjoys, but it was Dandelion Readers which has given him a fantastic foundation to tackle the rather tricky (TBH) ORT scheme at school. Until very recently he would read 2 books a night; one ORT from school and then one DD one of our own.

That said, we started (pre DD) with the BBC Fun with Phonics book here

www.amazon.co.uk/Fun-Phonics-Reading-Watch-Learn/dp/1406644781/ref=pd_sxp_grid_i_0_1

I had low expectations but it's brilliant for the very very early weeks. We never watched the DVD, just used the wall chart and the books. It's the perfect level for 'just starting out readers'. This is what I did for my (then) 4.5 yo. He's now a very fluent reader at 5.5 and my younger child (just turned 4) is making an excellent start with this book too.

Once we're through with the BBC book we'll move to the DD readers.

HTH.

PS I hate ORT but it's a necessary evil in our school!

I taught my then 4.5 yo to read (after he begged me to, I wasn't keen to do so pre school) and am now doing the same with his younger brother (just turned 4).

I read alot of threads here, and followed a lot of very helpful threads. Once we'd got going we used Dandelion Readers, which are is a brilliant, decodable reading scheme which I can't rate highly enough. My elder son (now 5.5) has ORT at school, which he quite enjoys, but it was Dandelion Readers which has given him a fantastic foundation to tackle the rather tricky (TBH) ORT scheme at school. Until very recently he would read 2 books a night; one ORT from school and then one DD one of our own.

That said, we started (pre DD) with the BBC Fun with Phonics book here

www.amazon.co.uk/Fun-Phonics-Reading-Watch-Learn/dp/1406644781/ref=pd_sxp_grid_i_0_1

I had low expectations but it's brilliant for the very very early weeks. We never watched the DVD, just used the wall chart and the books. It's the perfect level for 'just starting out readers'. This is what I did for my (then) 4.5 yo. He's now a very fluent reader at 5.5 and my younger child (just turned 4) is making an excellent start with this book too.

Once we're through with the BBC book we'll move to the DD readers.

HTH.

PS I hate ORT but it's a necessary evil in our school!

www.piperboooks.co.uk

This is the UK publisher of the Beginning Reading Instruction - a series of books designed to teach beginner readers how to read.

I was in a similar situation. We left the UK when DD was three and she is now six, in year one of a local non-English speaking school. We plan to return to the UK this summer and I am hoping the transition will not be too difficult for her. I taught her to read at home and she is probably not too far behind her peers in the UK, though we should have done more work on writing than we have.

We began with homemade flash cards featuring letter sounds and combinations of sounds, then started the Peter and Jane 'Keywords' books at level 1a. I made more flash cards to cover all the words in each new book we started (new words are listed at the end of each book) and made sure she was familiar with these before starting it to build her confidence when reading.

She made it to level 7 of Peter and Jane before becoming totally bored with them and refusing to read any more. By then though, she was able to decode words very well, even though Peter and Jane is not a phonics teaching series, and was reading her own choice of books. We have the ORT Read at Home books to level 4 which she has no problem with, but was never very interested in.

Peter and Jane are pretty dull, and dated, but I found that when combined with flashcard phonics teaching, they served her well. She still loves to read books with pictures, so isn't particularly interested in text heavy chapter books, but is a pretty confident reader (she's reading The Twits at the moment).

She always loved the flashcards and would get them out herself to play with all the time, whereas her interest in reading has taken longer to develop. Perhaps my choice of using Peter and Jane had something to do with that, but now she can read well she chooses the books that interest her.

I am not a teacher and I don't suppose that the way I have taught my DD in any way resembles the way she would have been taught at school in the UK. But without the know-how to teach her the proper way, I did what I could and she and I are both pleased with her progress. Hope this helps.

I am a huge fan of the ruth miskin Read Write early books to get the blending bit sorted (ie get the phonic sounds done first - can use quite nice phoneme cards from ruth misk too, or use letterland, just the early bit). Then just a random selection of phonic-led books. I used to buy them on Book People when they came up. Found the oxford songbirds fun (Julia Donaldson involved), and the uspbourne lift the flaps.

I am fairly enamoured of Jelly and Bean at Follifoot Farm for one-on-one phonics tuition. My DD loves the fact that, while fully decodable, they are proper stories; the later books can be used for comprehension exercises, as well as being fully decodable, which is very useful/convenient.

I think it depends on the child.
I taught my children to read whilst living abroad too using Peter & Jane & the Ladybird 100 key word flashcards.
I had the jolly phonics books too but I couldn't interest the children in them. So we played letter recognition games (like "DS1 find the "h" for Mummy") and when they had more or less got those under their belts, we moved onto the Peter & Jane books.
DS1 just soared through them even though they are incredibly boring, but DS2 couldn't get into them at all. So I bought the ORT and DS2 just suddenly came on.
I only did the books up to a low level though before switching to a good range of early readers that were more story driven. There was a book called "A Dog Called Whatnot" that DS1 & DS2 just loved.
Both children learned to read within a few months though: I think it helps if they get a little each day and never get pushed to do it when they are not interested but get rewarded with treats when they meet a new target.

I'm not a fan of the Jolly phonics readers although I like the Jolly Phonics handbook