Learning to read - seems to be no structure to it

[grumpypants]

I'm a bit frustrated at the moment - ds (5) is in Y1 and brings home two books a week, one to read to me, and one to have read to him. There is just no continuity to the books he is meant to read and he is just not reading as well as i thought he would be by now. Older ds also couldn't read (worse than this) buy the end of Y1 and we hired a tutor for Y2 - he is now a free reader (Y3) and has a brilliant reading age.
The school read in groups, and apparently use several reading schemes.

Any thoughts?

£1000 on ORT? perish the thought.

Our school uses several reading schemes, all banded in colours at roughly similar levels. Different children enjoy, and therefore work better at, different schemes - though they have to experience several different sorts to work through a colour band, so they get variety anyway. ORT is one of them - and some kids (dd being one) do like them, but ALL the time?

and that's just the Biff, Chip et al books add on the other ORT books ...

Horrified?? Alice in Wonderland, not Alice Does Dallas!

Jez - lots of people buy parts of it to bump their children over times when they are getting bored with reading or aren't getting enough attention to their reading at school. I agree it's expensive. But you can hire it really cheaply, according to mrsz.

Mrsz - I am pretty shocked at the level of complacency among those who think the Hobbit is normal Y2 fare. Is this a case of I'm alright Jack, my class is alright Jack?

I can imagine the decoding is easier than the comprehension.

I wonder if you are seeing more comprehension than is there of stuff like this:

The King beneath the mountains,
The King of carven stone,
The lord of silver fountains
Shall come into his own!

His crown shall be upholden,
His harp shall be restrung,
His halls shall echo golden
To songs of yore re-sung.

The woods shall wave on mountains
And grass beneath the sun:
His wealth shall flow in fountains
And the rivers golden run.

The streams shall run in gladness,
The lakes shall shine and burn,
All sorrow fail and sadness
At the Mountain-king's return!
"Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of the reality,
O Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamaties," replied Bilbo.
"You have nice manners for a thief and a liar," said the dragon.
"You seem familiar with my name, but I don't seem to remember smelling
you before. Who are you and where do you come from, may I ask?"
"You may indeed! I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over
the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen."
"So I can well believe," said Smaug, "but that is hardly your usual name."
"I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly.
I was chosen for the lucky number."
"Lovely titles!" sneered the dragon. "But lucky numbers don't always come off."

I think you are making it more difficult than it would be to a child

but you purchased it all didn't you Gooseberrybushes?

www.readingchest.co.uk/prices-and-packages it comes recommended by MN posters although I've not used it myself

Funnily enough, I was an early reader and read The Hobbit at about that age. And - having been thinking about this kind of stuff with regard to DD who seems to be reading in the way I did - I really, really regret it. I could have got so much more out of it had I waited for a couple of years more. (I also read Jacqueline Susann and Georgette Heyer at that age, as well as Paul Gallico: we didn't have enough books in the house).

All of which convinces me that I'm going to put a reasonable amount of effort into finding age-appropriate books for DD, so that she can really enjoy the ones she does read. Of course I can't control what she reads, but I can at least suggest.

Of course it's not impossible for children of 6 and 7 to read The Hobbit and Alice in Wonderland - I just think that it is unusual. It would be even more unusual to comperehend them fully: "I only took the regular course" (sighed the Mock Turtle)....Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with.. and then the different branches of Arithmetic - Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision" . I daresay my 9 year old would get it now.

I suppose everyone is different and I love revisiting childhood "reads" and seeing them with my adult eyes lthough I read much more inappropriate books at age 7

Trying to remember what I read at 7 - Enid Blyton?? Mary Plane and the Twins. Dr Doolittle. My Naughty Little Sister.

Then, The Dolls House, The Secret Garden, E Nesbitt, The Borrowers, The Railway Children...

I have most of them still, and dd (Y2) dips in. But she also dips into The Tiara Club, Greek Myths and Legends, Shakespeare (for kids), Aesops Fables, ORT, and fairytales...

I find the enthusiasm about ORT odd, and I have since my DTDs started Reception in September. Having read some of the primary ed threads on MN, I fully expected them to come home with the fabled ORT Biff and Chip books, but they never have. Their school uses 4 or 5 different reading schemes, and the girls never have a book from the same scheme two days running. New book every day, along with "tricky word" lists. Amazingly, their reading is coming on a treat - and not an ORT book in sight! At home, they read all sorts (Pants and More Pants are DTD1's faves) - we have some books from the Usborne Phonics Readers series given to us by my mum, and they like the fact that they can read some of the books they already have on their shelves.

I have to say, I agree with mrz - buying a whole reading scheme is mad - massively expensive, and, tbh, smacks of hothousing. Why not just go to the library and choose books together, or check out the books suggested for DC's age in a book shop - buying (or even hiring, IMO) a reading scheme seems plain weird.

BTW, DNeice is nearly 8 and has been free reading since the end of Y1. DSis is careful to guide her reading choices so that she fully comprehends and enjoys her books. DNeice is perfectly capable of reading Harry Potter, but DSis does not consider it appropriate for a sensitive 8 yr old girl. She enjoys Malory Towers, The Naughtiest Girl in School, Roald Dahl, some of the gentler Micheal Murpurgo books, Laura Ingalls Wilder and is getting into unabridged versions of children's classics like THe Railway Children, A Little Princess etc.

I tried to read Lord of the Rings at 10 and bloody hated it. Picked it up again aged 22 and loved it.

"I think you are making it more difficult than it would be to a child"

how? by quoting it directly?

But this is normal to be reading this at six? and not gifted?

I'm suggesting buying ORT because this child plainly isn't being taught to read at school in any organised or structured way. Mrsz I assume from your comment you dn't object to parents buying some -- only all of it?

I can't understand the dislike of ORT. It works, it does the job. No, it's not the Hobbit. Lol at the idea that helping your children read by buying ORT is hothousing - but not, of course, being encouraged to read the above

I believe you see comprehension where there is decoding mrsz. Of course decoding is marvellous. But it's not the understanding you speak of.

"Buying a reading scheme is weird"

because reading schemes are weird aren't they

that's why they do them

No by putting adult interpretations on text that a child would understand at their own level.
Every time we visit texts we bring new knowledge and experiences to the level of understanding so for a child the understanding may be at a very simple level.

I've put no interpretations on it. I quoted it. End of.

"Every time we visit texts we bring new knowledge and experiences to the level of understanding so for a child the understanding may be at a very simple level."

perhaps you excuse your chldren the obsession with complete comprehension that mine and so many others have been subject to as part of the curriculum

I don't think publishers envisaged parents purchasing whole reading schemes or they wouldn't have bothered with the "read at home" alternatives

I'm sure they didn't: but then I'm sure no one imagined chldren not being taught to read at school either.

I expect them to understand what they read if that's what you mean but I wouldn't expect them to read a text with an adult's perception and knowledge.

ORT never used to be that much. I got mine yrs ago, some were passed down to me, and I passed it on to a needy family in the end. Should have put it on ebay for the uni fees if I'd known.

There again perhaps they didn't think anyone would spend hundreds of pounds for something freely available ...

Gooseberry - what is weird, IMO, is your apparent assumption that the only way to encourage a child to read is by using a "scheme" and working through it. It's a bloody wonder any of us learned to read at all given that the magical ORT wasn't around when we were at school.

How about just using books - any books?

What is so bloody wonderful about reading schemes?

And in the one passage you hear your children read every week, you would ask them to explain what they understand by this:

"Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of the reality,
O Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamaties," replied Bilbo.
"You have nice manners for a thief and a liar," said the dragon.
"You seem familiar with my name, but I don't seem to remember smelling
you before. Who are you and where do you come from, may I ask?"
"You may indeed! I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over
the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen."
"So I can well believe," said Smaug, "but that is hardly your usual name."
"I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly.
I was chosen for the lucky number."

And what would you expect them to tell you in that fifteen minutes?