Trying to see the positives in Biff Chip etal

[Ohgoonthenpouranother]

My DD school is teaching jolly phonics. She knows all her sounds now.
The school also uses these ORT books. They are ink stamped with the school logo which also has the date on and they are clearly over 20 years old. They do not use any other scheme.
We have now had all the purple books (there's a list on the back) and seem to be doing a second round. Yawn.
Also they are doing a word book of 45 high frequency words. They have not started with easy words, 'this' & 'away' being within first group learnt. I have found this list via mumsnet and I am bewildered to say the least. DD does not seem to be 'getting it' what ever it is! She is a bright girl, but I see no progression and this second round of kipper has finished her off!

Is it a good reading scheme? Should I trust school or do something myself to encourage her.

masha you do talk rubbish

"As long as you use magic 'e' concrete and cornflakes are decodable aren't they." When they're phonics are at the stage of c-a-t == cat, not they're not.

their phonics

Sadly, we are going through the motions with Biff & Chip and finding other things at home for him to learn to read with. DS is getting on fine with them because he has a good memory, plain and simple. They're frankly useless for teaching reading.

It isn't a MN Floppy hatred, it's universal in my own community.

Gaelicsheep -' when your phonics are at the level of c-a-t '.. for the first weeks of school DS was given dandelion readers which were very good for the cat, sat, sit type words and he uses Jollyphonics at home which clearly select only decodable words even when dealing with delaing with more sophiticated themes but that is not how DS or any one else talks . That is where we have found ORT helpful - in introducing the tricky but regularly used words. Before that even with words he knew well he would tend to sound them out because he knew he could. DS would able to sound out words like cornflakes using phonic rules but not words like ' wanted, people, ' before he started ORT now he confidently moves between decodable and non/ not easily-decodable words.

See, I would say that's where real books come in. IMO ORT type books are redundant. Yet they are ALL DS gets - ever.

I only have experience in them up to level 4 and just find that they can be useful. To be honest DS knew his phonics before school ( October birthday and family member in teacher training) which probably strongly influences his ability to move more quickly onto ORT. If he had not I think the first term of reading would have been much more difficult.
I actually like Jolly phonics readers which I know many people don't . DS likes the silent letters in lighter print but they do lack tricky words.

I was warned off doing anything with DS before school by the nursery teacher. Plus I knew what was facing him and I didn't want him to be bored stiff and turned off by knowing all his letters and sounds already.

ORT helpful - in introducing the tricky but regularly used words.

The ORT books and all other reading becomes much easier once children can easily read the most used English words (in addition to mastering basic phonics). Being able to sight-read the following from the 100 most used English words is especially helpful:

the, he, be, we, me, she,
of, to, was, want, all, call, one, said,
you, by, my, only, come, could, do, down, into, look, now, other, right, some, there, two, when, what, where, which, who, your,
are, have, before, more, were.

It's worth teaching those in small doses (if your child is ready and willing), with a mixture of decoding and learning by sight, irrespective of what they are being taught at school.

In the next 200 most HF words the following are tricky to various degrees:

another, any, many, saw, water, small, laughed,

bear, great, head, ready,

ever, never, every, eyes,

find, friends, giant, I?ll, I?m, key, live, river,

people, pulled, put, thought, through, were, work, would,

coming, everyone, gone,

most, mother, oh, once, clothes, cold, old, told,

grow, how, know, snow, town, window,

book, food, good, room, school, soon, too, took, door,

after, asked, can?t, fast, last, plants (depending on accent).

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo

These lists are preposterous - the man who thought his wife was a hat - the woman who had a compulsion to spew out lists.

Or is it just an attention seeking ploy? People are admirably tolerant to put up with this rubbish.

What?

These threads are an amazing insights into human stupidity stubbornness. mrz, MaizieD and allchildrenreading consistently give clear, evidence-backed arguments for synthetic phonics teaching that anyone with half a brain and a small child to hand ought to be able to grasp, so knowledgeable, modest and transparent are the posts, and yet many posters seem unable to take their teaching on board...

juniper, if you're still reading this thread, would you tell us please which university you attended. Thanks.

''Or perhaps they are just as stupid as the nursery teacher who advised gaelicsheep not to do anything with her son before he started school?''

I recommend that parents 'school-proof' their children pre-school using a systematic synthetic phonics programme.

That should be 'insinuations'

My dd loves the Biff and Chip books, they make me chuckle too at some of the things in the pictures. These books are for children, not adults and what they have done, is make her feel she CAN read a proper book, especially now (stage 9), they are getting longer and more like a 'real' book, the predictibility of them, boosted her confidence.

My dd's old school taught phonics, but somewhere along the way she lost interest - maybe because I taught her most of her letter sounds and she was reading simple three letter words (cat, box, fox, pig etc.), prior to starting school - who knows, but at Year 1, she was put on a Reading Recovery scheme. Whether it was the scheme, the fact she had 1:1 attention for 20 mins everyday, or the wonderful teacher she had (most likely a mix of all three), but she has gone from thinking she can't and hating reading to knowing she can.

At her new school (Yr 2), she reads lots of different books, Ginn/ORT/Songbirds/Owls etc., but her teacher seems to pick out books with elements she needs work on, which I like the idea of. At them moment we are getting books with rhyme and poetry in them. At home, she has just started readinng the 'Rainbow Pets' books and some 'Magic Tree' books, on her own - to say I am thrilled she has 'cracked it', is an understatement, but thank you Biff and Chip!

I am glad to see that Mashabell's unpleasant insinuation was deleted.

Bonsoir
I would not call the comment above by allchildrenreading clear or evidence-based.

The tricky words which I posted were ones I picked out from the 300 most used English words listed in Letter&Sounds. They are the same which RWI sends out on big posters as 'red' words as part of their phonics package for displaying in classrooms.

Why the supporters of phonics object to me posting them on here I shall never know.

187 of the 300 most used words are mostly phonically regular for reading:

a, am, an, and, as, at, back, bad, can, cat, dad, gran, grandad, had, has, hat, man, rabbit, ran, sat, than, that, that?s,

came, gave, made, make, place, take, baby,

away, day, may, play, say, way,

car, dark, garden, hard, park,

bed, best, better, eggs, end, fell, get, help, let, let?s, next, red, tell, them, then, very, well, went, yes, her,

been, feet, green, keep, need, queen, see, sleep, three, tree, trees,

each, eat, sea, tea, please, even, here, these,

big, children, did, didn?t, different, fish, him, his, if, in, is, it, it?s, its, king, little, miss, still, thing, things, think, this, will, wind, wish, with,

birds, first, girl,

inside, like, liked, time, I, I?ve, cried, night, right, by, fly, my,

box, dog, fox, from, got, hot, long, lots, no, not, of, off, on, so, stop, stopped, top, floppy, across, along,

go, going, home, over,

or, for, horse, morning,

found, house, mouse, our, out, round, around, shouted, about, boy,

but, duck, fun, just, much, mum, must, run, sun, under, up, us, jumped, suddenly,

use,

when, which, while, why,

their, they, new, again, air, because, began, boat, window.

masha I don't have a problem with you posting but I do wish you would learn how to spell y o u and I do wish you would stop posting your silly lists and I do wish you would stop saying all the world's problems are down to the English orthographical system.

I don't even look at your lists, mashabell, because I don't know what on earth they have got to do with learning to read. My DD learned to read recently and certainly didn't need any lists of words to do so!

Can anyone tell me what the rest of mashabell's post said, seeing as she referred to me in it? Thanks.

Up here in Scotland they have lists of words to learn to sight read. DS got a list of 12 in a "spelling jotter" right at the beginning of P1 that he's to know by the end of the year. Interestingly they are consistently the only words he recognises - apart from Biff, Chip, Floppy, Kipper, Mum and Dad of course. There is simply not enough consistency with any other words for him to learn them, and of course he's not learning to decode. He's quick off the mark though, with games of iSpy and spelling out words (instigated by him) he's catching on.

I cannot believe I just wrote iSpy there!! I Spy I mean. The power of modern consumerism!

Biff and Chip are fine.
I still have excellent memories of the pirates - was it Roderick and Godfrey .... from the early 1970's

reading schemes are merely the central stem onto which all other reading experiences are later hung

What worries me TalkinPeace2 is the predictability being cited by many posters as a good thing. I think it's a bad thing that could stop them from wanting to move out of that comfort zone, especially if Biff & Chip are the only school readers. I don't have any strong memories about any reading schemes, I believe because there was never one scheme. There is only one book I really remember and that was a lovely fairy story called "Briar Rose". I couldn't wait to get that one I remember. I was about DS's age at the time.