Oxford Reading Tree - what is WRONG with these bucketheads?

[solidgoldbrass]

Do they sit down and work out how to create books that are entirely witless and infuriating on purpose? I mean, as if Biff & Baff & Fucko and their Magic Key weren't tiresome enough, we are now on to Ant and Dec and Dipshit and their magic shrinking watches (The X Project). Stupid stories with no context, no resolution, no sense of character... are they trying to create a generation of book-haters?

Yes I think so.

I wish I was brave enough to tell the school where to put those sodding bloody things. I was all geared up to do just that and then chickened out!

My DD loves Biff, Chip & Kipper and is very excited each time we get a new book home, which amounts to twice a week. Last night they discovered the magic key and she has been playing magic key games all afternoon and evening. DS enjoyed them, though not to the extent of DD. Perhaps we are odd, but they seem to feed DD's imagination, so there is at least a section of the population that enjoys them.

I actually like the Magic Key... (although am aware that I probably won't by the time DC3 has gone through them)

You are at perfect liberty to buy or borrow more much more stimulating literature for your dcs and tell them that ORT is one of the boring things in life which has to be done but doesn't last for ever.

I live in hope that the shrinking watch kids will get eaten by the cat

Our school has just got rid of them, DS (7) really liked them and has been much less enthusiastic about reading school books since the change. DD (5) on the other hand is doing much better on the new scheme. I can see that they weren't the best in many ways but I was quite fond of them. Especially Gran.

The problem is they have no merit whatsoever. The stories are tedious in the extreme. They do not teach children to read. There are far better books out there for both those things. Once children can read well enough to be onto the Magic Key/Watch whatever there is absolutely no need for "readers" at all.

Our school openly admits that they only use them because they've no budget to buy new books. In DS's case these bloody things are positively harmful, doing nothing except convince him that he can't read any book unless someone has read it to him first so that he's memorised all the ridiculous non-decodeable words.

Anyhow that's another thread that has no doubt been done to death. We go through the motions with Biff and Chipper once per book to keep the school happy - one quick read through - and then read decent useful books at home.

Our school has a mix of different reading schemes i the book trolley. It would drive us mad if we only had that option.

I think some kids like them because they are predictable and formulaic. Not a great advert.

IS ORT STILL going. Mine were reared on it adn all I remember is the competition in the playground between the mothers as to what colour/level yoru child was on!

christ, you should try being the poor bloody teacher. Not just one book a week but at least twenty five....

I was delighted to start work in an excellent school that did not use ORT. Only to face it at home with DS when he brought his first reading book home. He doesn't like them much either.

Oh you'd be OK in DS's school HumphreyCobbler. They only do two books a week - the whole class reads the same blardy one at the same time. Lovely to know our children are being treated as the individuals that they are.

My twins (five years) pronounced them "boring" though apparently they're not as bad as the new Ginn books.

We started them on Village with Three Corners (ancient scheme), which they quite like as they have the wooden characters to go with the series. Though we have lots of other reading schemes.

Ds1 loves the project x books. He can't wait to find out what's going in with Dr x and nasti. So much so that he has to ne asked to put the book down and not read it as soon as he gets his hands in it. Ds1 was lukewarm on biff and chip but he liked the later books. Ds2 likes them very much. I think they like the continuity of characters and storylines - you don't get that with some other schemes.

OH GOD the village with three corners? As in Roger Red Hat and Billy Blue Hat and (stupidly) Jennifer Yellow Hat (clearly should have been Yolanda Yellow Hat). Those really are ancient. I had those at primary school 40 years ago - literally. Have I accidentally wandered into an episode of Antiques Roadshow?

Sorry, OT. My DD doesn't do ORT - they have Rigby at school so I can't compare content or reading level in a neurotic fashion although I wish I could

Neither me or the DC mind Biff Chip and Kipper at all or their magic key ...
Until you have sunk to the depths of the Ginn Reading Series , you really can't complain IME.
Just thinking about that inane drivel makes me want to jump out of the window .

Hooray just noted from Bovary that I'm not the only bored rigid parent by Ginn.
I wrote in very large letters to the teacher that under no circumstances were they ever to send those books home ever again. Ever.

I remember ds refusing to do his reading one day because it was boring, I told him it wouldn't take long but he had to do his homework. He said, ok bu I don't need the book, oh floppy, no floppy, oh floppy, no floppy, floppy floppy. Said in a very ner ner ner ner type voice. I had to laugh, he was woe perfect!

The very same. Though they were still in print until a couple of years ago. And for sheer reading inspiration I (and the, still devoted, adult following) haven't found anything to come close to the, similarly ancient, Hidden People books by the same author.

But we have most of the new schemes too. We tried them out using a reading scheme loan subscription first.

• word perfect

Dd's school doesn't really use a reading scheme the whole library is graded and children choose their book according to the colour they are assessed at.They also don't routinely read to teachers or TAs individually either. Reading books are for home, diaries are checked weekly and levels checked every half term during regular guided reading sessions.It's not what I've been used to but it seems to work anyway. Reading has never felt a chore with dd whereas with my others it did feel like pulling teeth at times.

Oh I do send the book diary back sometimes with 'Didn't want to read this book, read something else instead'. DS is a good reader, loves reading, loves stories, and the school are actually OK with that. Also, we are not being obliged to read all this cack in order or anything, the school did in fact acknowledge at one point that they didn't have enough reading books at the right level for DS so we were getting the same 4 books home time and time again. I just object generally to books that are utter rubbish.

I hate the X project, don't know why, maybe I'm just lazy having to read tedium as well as listen to it. At least most of the words are decodable. But biff and chip had some kind of humour to them, once you get past the randomness of whether you will have to read them or your child. We had mum and dad going up and down escalators yesterday. We have songbirds at home which I think are my favourite, decodable and not too tedious.

I realise that it is hard to make three letter CVC words interesting, but as I tell my children, you only have to learn to read once. I'm just glad that dd2 at the moment seems determined to read whatever it takes, to lift us both out of the lower stages, beyond those I am happier finding reading material for her.

ORT books I think are designed to help children use pictures as clues to help decipher words, rather than straight word recognition or de-codable words.
I usually need to say "What's happening here?" or "How are they feeling"
?"etc, before we read the text.

To be honest, I don't like them! I'm glad we have a mixture of reading schemes for the children to choose their next book from, so they (and we!!) get some variety. We've just had some new reading books with things like Doctor Who and Sarah Jane adventures in them...very popular!

Most phonics advocates have very mixed feelings about the ORT books. This is because, in the early stages of learning to read, ORT throw all the complexities of the code at children who are trying to make some sense of the way the writing system relates to spoken language.
Here's an example from a Stage 1 book, The New Baby: Jo had some good news. In this sentence the letter represents the sound /oe/ in the first word and /u/ in the word 'some'. /me/ is two letters one sound, as is /oo/ in the word 'good'. In other words, it's far too difficult for a child to decode if they are in the earliest stage of learning to read.
It stands to reason that if a child has only been taught one-to-one correspondences, applying what they have just been taught will not help them to work out how to read books like this: they are forced to try and remember whole words, a strategy that fails enormous numbers of children.
However, once children have learned a fair amount of the code, then ORT books are very useful for promoting fluency.
Of course, as some have noted, they can become very boring. My daughter was heartily sick of them in the end. That isn't necessarily always the case though and the trouble with adults is that they tend to look at children's books through adult eyes. So, would you read the book A new baby to a child? Why not? It's well illustrated, there's lots to talk about and there are the usual Hunt and Brychta jokes.
When a teacher (or a carer) gives a child a book, they need to have a clear purpose. Are they giving the book to the child to promote fluency, or are they presenting the child with an opportunity to enhance their cultural repertoire (expand their vocabularies, learn more about how written language differs from spoken language, have fun, bond with the child, etc).