Reading Book Set-COLLINS Big Cat

[joannec74]

Does your school use the Collins Big Cat reading set for 4-7 year olds? What are your thoughts on this set? Is it as good as others?

Not quite sure what you mean by as good as others but the Big Cat Phonics are very good for the very early stages are learning to read. The main Big Cat scheme in the later is also good and has much more varied language/sentence structure and interesting stories than Biff, Chip etc IMO.

We use these in school as part of both our reading scheme and our guided reading scheme, the books are useful as home readers as they have questions and activities in the back which can support questioning by parents. The children like them, even the older children as the range of texts is quite wide.

I don't think the earliest books are as good as some newer phonic schemes but once a child has the basics the books are better than many commonly used reading schemes.

These were one of the few reading scheme books DD liked.

She read them when at about stage 4 so don't know what the earlier/later ones are like.

We used these (along with other schemes) with the Big cat Phonics. My DC liked them well enough.

we own a few - erm a couple of blue, a yellow and a couple of turquoise I think and my daughter really liked them.

I got the yellow and blue levels for home and I think they are amazing. Each book is quite different and more like a real book than a scheme book. I would love to get more of them but they are quite expensive.

DD got a few from school and loved them.

If anyone has an iPad you can try putting in "Collins big cat" in the apple store as they did have a few in there that were free. But this was 18 months ago at least...

Thanks very much everyone. My 1st has just started school and I hadn't heard of friends schools using this scheme.

I don't know about the set for 4 to 7 year olds but when Yr5 was put back on scheme books last year she got the Diamond and then the Pearl ones and they were really good - engaging stories by good authors with lots to think about and discuss. We were pleased.

But what if the child is reading good books - age 8 - Harry Potter, The Railway Children etc outside Big Cats - it just uses time and energy? Why don't they invite the child to bring in the books she loves to read and discuss (briefly as teachers busy of course)???