Reading chest, decodable books, and book bands

[MisterPC]

Hi,

We have recently subscribed to reading chest to help our children with their reading and I was hoping for some advice on which reading schemes and book bands to choose for them. We have 4 children with differing needs.

1. DS1 Y4 - currently bringing home 1 ORT Treetops stage 12/13 book per week and is a reluctant reader (mentioned by my wife in another thread).

2. DS2 Y1 - currently brings home 2 blue band books per week across ORT Floppy's Phonics, ORT Songbirds and ORT 'Classic' Biff and Chip Stories. About to move to green band and really enjoys reading both to us and to his younger sisters.

3. DDTs YR - currently learning letter sounds through Jolly Phonics at school but not yet ready to bring books home. We've just started them on reading eggs which they really enjoy.

Am I correct in thinking that I only need to worry about choosing fully decodable books up to a certain book band? If so is that blue, green, or orange?

My current thinking is

1. DS1 Y4 - drop slightly below his current level to white band and allow all schemes.

2. DS2 Y1 - green band with all schemes.

3. DDTs YR - pink band with Project X, Phonics Bug, Floppy's Phonics, Collins Big Cat Phonics, and Yellow Door Phonics. Increase to all schemes once they reach green band in Y1.

Thanks for any advice.

Paul

Sounds about right to me but the only thing I will say is that your oldest DS might find the books a bit boring...

My DS is in yr3 and found lime stage (11) too dull so I did switch him to non fiction for a bit.

I only had him on it for a few weeks as it was pointless paying for something he was not enjoying and not challenging him iyswim....

I use Oxford owl and the reading chest to really challenge DD (4) soI have her one level above where she is at school and so far it seems to work ok...

Thanks I'll try oxfordowl as well.

I've changed my mind on including the ORT books for DS2 Y1 as he brought home some extra More Stories and a Sparrow book today and they were pretty boring. He also looked at the pictures to work out words that I knew he could sound out and I really want to avoid that after reading what mrz has posted. I guess also that it is better not to clash with the school books either as they seem to send him home with the set books even if he tells them he has read them before (a set of Songbird books we bought for our older child).

I will see how DS1 Y4 gets on with the lower levels. Our big problem is his expression (completely monotonous and a lack of awareness of punctuation through trying to 'complete' the book as fast as possible!) and we're hoping we can develop this if he finds the book easier.