Reading schemes - book change frequency

[KSadler]

Hoping someone out there can help with my frustration. DS (no. 3) is attending a different school to my other 2 DS and is only being allowed 2 reading books per week as part of school policy. However he has learned the story by day 3 of the same book ! He is on ORT yellow band and the school is refusing to give him additional books as they do not have the resource to book change daily !!! Other schools I know of change daily. Does anyone else have this frustration. DS is desperate for new books and local libraries do not keep ORT

I do share your frustration: at dd's school it is one book a week at most -and that would be a good week when there have been enough parent helpers to listen to the kids read - towards the end of last term they had the same book for 3 weeks.

ORT are a bit rubbish anyway. I would just see what else the library has got and try your charity shops too.

Reading Chest may help OP.

Personally, I can't see the point of giving children the same book for days-especially if you're asking them to practise decoding. But there might be reception teachers who could explain. Dd's school change daily when read and that seems to work well, although a heavy workload for them I'm sure. Reading chest is expensive but might prove a solution if the school won't budge.

Our school will change 3xweek, (DC have to have read it twice first) but with books that short (DD1 is on yellow too) she's memorised it by the first read, so the second read through is ridiculously quick.

I do reading chest (she gets through about 4 extras a week) and also the library, although I don't stick to ORT, anything that looks about the right level for her. Plus I get out old board books etc from when she was a baby.

We do about 20 minutes each night. (dd can't get enough of it - it's me who limits it) and her ability has really accelerated since I made the effort to sit down with her religously each night and do the extras above the school stuff.

Please let your child read books other than ORT. Almost anything would be better. They're just teaching devices and sent home mainly to help children who don't have books at home.

It does seem a shame for him to be so limited during the week.
A few ideas to eek out the books over a week, but perhaps you do them already.

Obviously predicting the story is out as you know what is going to happen next, but can he re-tell the story? Act part of it out? Especially as he knows them so well. First with pictures to help, then without.

Can he find particular words on the page, ie a frequent word or a characters name? Could he then spell them out loud first by looking at it, then with his eyes closed? He should get better/quicker at this over the week.

Could you say a word from the story and then he has to say a word that rhymes, this could lead to silly, made up rhymes.

I would make these things into a game rather than a test, so perhaps he asks you to carry out some of the above as well. Or you take turns reading the pages so he gets a chance to hear the story read with fluency and expression. I would then encourage him to really focus on the expression, so he really has to act 'over the top', you could even occasionally record him and then he can listen to himself read.

If all these things are easy then perhaps you ask for him to be moved up a level but first i would try to be creative with the book and ask the teacher for some other ideas to bring the books alive. Also, although reading schemes help children to feel familiar and safe with story langauge/characters etc, i think they can limit a child's reading experience. Take some non ORT books from the library - this will help him get used to other fonts/styles of text, story lines etc. Hope this helps.

At our school parents change books and I change my son's daily. The school used to have a policy of 2 books a week but the policy of parents doing it means less TA time used and those who want more/less can have what suits. The teacher puts a note in their reading record when they are ready for the next level.

At one of my DC's school the reception children have they're books changed twice a week. This is because the reception teachers like to hear the children read before they change the book.
When they get into year 1 and 2 the books are changed whenever the child has finished reading them.

I can understand that it's time consuming for the school to change books, (although would be time well spent IMO). I wonder if they would let you take several books out at once when they're changing anyway? That surely wouldn't take much extra time?

Not heard of Reading chest zettlebox. Thanks for that link.