Is DS on the right ORT level - how much are they supposed to read by themselves?

[TwiggysGoneOnHolidayByMistake]

DS just started in YR - very good reader for his age. His teacher put him on Level 4 ORT and said she thought it was the right level but to let her know if I thought otherwise. Well he can read some of the words but most are too tricky for him. I'd say he can read maybe a third of the words without help? He can read phonetically-decodable words (went, dog, mum etc.) and have a good try at basic words non-phonetic words (go, of, day etc.) but longer or trickier words are beyond him (in this book: through, skateboard, found etc.)

I'm not sure how much they are supposed to be able to read by themselves and how much help they need. I seem to remember that DD could read most of the words in all of her ORT books at each stage, so does this mean his current level is too hard for him?

sounds a bit too hard. You want them to be able to read most of the words so thy dont get put off/demoralised by having to sound out all the ones they dont know.

In theory a child should be able to read 90-95% of a book for fluency, any less than that and they would lose the thread of the story by struggling to work out each word. The problem you have is that you seem to have the "old" ORT books that include a number of words where he has not yet met the grapheme so struggles. I would say it was too hard and rather than discourage him with too many words he is unable to decode would suggest you ask for either an easier book or one preferably which contains the sounds he knows!

Thanks. Yes, it's full of words like skateboard which can't be easily sounded out (I know that technically they can be decoded, but you know what I mean!) I will say he needs to move down then - I was just a bit worried to say I thought the teacher was wrong :)

Don't worry, the teacher will be so amazed that a parent thinks her child should be on an easier level ( rather than a harder one) that they won't care!

Good point, snowball :o And she did ask me to tell her if I thought it was wrong, it's not like she said "he MUST be on this one".

I've forgotten about all this reading lark - it was all so long ago with DD!

A statistic of children being able to easily read about 90% of a text, and taking time/needing support with the remaining 10% gets mentioned a lot of MN.

Certainly my dd coped much better with 100% decodable books like Songbird phonics at the beginning of reception.

And this thread is the perfect example of why schools shouldn't be using standard ORT texts with children just developing early reading skills.

OP, in the ideal world your DS would be bringing home books which linked in with how they are taught at school, so that he would be able to decode any initially unfamiliar words, rather than being expected to guess from the picture/context, which is what ORT expects children to do.

I posted a thread last week about my dismay that my dt's school are using ORT in reception. I was accused, by a minority I might add, that I was being neurotic. I have a Year 4 dd who used this scheme and is still not a free reader.

Be wary, very wary, of the 'old' ORT scheme. Decodable books are what your dc needs, using words and sounds that he has learnt. It is ridiculous to expect him to know how to read 'skateboard'. The example I used in my post was 'circus'. Madness IMVHO!!

I shall be very closely involved with the books my dt's are given to read at home. I speak from bitter experience

I don't think they're the best books but I haven't really worried about it because (a) my DD learned on them and she was a free reader by Y2 and (b) we read decodeable books at home so he gets plenty of practise. It is a shame that some children are only going to read these books though :(

The thing is 'circus' is decodable once children have been taught that 'c' followed by an 'e' or 'i' sometimes makes a 's' sound (very plebian attempt at explaining phonics there, but I hope that you get the drift).

Which happens some time after the first few weeks of reception.

Sounds a little too hard. I'd say to try level 3 instead. At this stage, I think you are looking for them to do 9/10 words themselves.

This is just weird now. I got him to read a different Level 4 book this week and he read it almost fluently (and he definitely hadn't read it before) but he wasn't capable of this 2 weeks ago. It's odd - he's too good, as weird as that sounds! I don't think he's reading 'properly'. He seems to be reading from guessing the sentence structure and from the vague shape of the word (I covered up the pictures so that wasn't giving him any clues) and I know he isn't decoding them. For example, he read the word "outside" with no hesitation at all but I know that if I wrote that word down by itself then he couldn't decode it. He just seems to guess correctly at words.... does that matter?! Am I worrying over nothing?! Two weeks ago he was still on sounding out simple words - he can't have possibly learned to read that well in a fortnight, can he?

I'm sure if seems very daft to worry that your child reads too well but I guess I want to make sure he isn't somehow skipping ahead and missing the basics.