How are reading schemes used in class?

[Wrecktum]

Sorry if I’m being dense and/or this has been covered a million times, but can anyone could shed some light on how reading schemes are actually used in the classroom? DD's in Reception and doesn’t talk about school. Ever. I know they’re using the ORT but don't know how. (I’ve come across terms like guided, group, shared and individual reading - is that basically it?). All I’ve ascertained since September is that she picks a book for us to practice at home each night. And that Biffy/Chippy/Flappy are loathsome.

I'm sure it depends on the school!

DD (who's 4, but does tell us lots about what happens at school, all the playground gossip and the work they do - which is mostly "boring") Gets a reading book to bring home on Monday and Friday, this has always taken us 2 minutes and is trivial, she moves up a level every now and then, but doesn't appear to have any real rhyme or reason why or when she reads them all without error.

In school, they do group phonics practice (having previously been learning the sounds but supposedly they've learnt all the YR sounds supposedly) every morning. Then there's the book corner which they can choose to read in any time and some kids get extra help there.

Just this term, they've started a group chat where they all have a copy of the book and read it - the group hasn't changed, so presumably is banded in some way by ability.

We have a home/school book scheme which combines phonics and hfw (I don't really like the balance between the two - other schemes are done much better). That the children progress through at their own pace (which definitely is reflective of support received at home). Then 1to1 reading in school (mainly with a ta - very well trained) to access moving to next book/level. Guided reading weekly with teacher (small group, teacher listens to children read and discuss as a group - with a focus for each session linked to curriculum) - in our school we use phonic books until the children are at a stage beyond them. In addition is phonics teaching (I'm in year 2 so most children are past direct teaching of phonics sounds but we still have some children who access this) and then additional interventions (some 1to1 others are small group - may be decoding/comprehension based or both).

Thank you so much! That's really helped to give me a picture of the sort of things that might be going on in there. Teacher's a bit gruff (but very good) and I'm too chicken to ask.

If you want your daughter to tell you about her school day, offer to write it down for her as a "report". I found that made mine open up!

My DS is taught using the read write ink programme, the only downside to this is that there are no books suitable for them to bring home to read.(reception teacher friend told me this) So reading books brought home are song birds or Biff Chip and Kipper ones.
Our school is very good at involving parents, they do family time and workshops. Just this week I spent a couple of hours observing my DS in class and seeing how they carry out activities in class. I observed him in maths, phonetics session and topic, I found it valuable.

There is no reason why the school can't send home RWI books.

I suppose it's a possible resource thing, they don't have enough to go round and don't have the funds to replace the songbirds and biff chip and kipper books that have been built up over many years. My DCs school has only been using RWI programme 2-3 years.

We have RWI books that are used in class but not sent home - definitely due to replacing list books. We just couldn't afford to replace so the resource would be lost to class if they went home.

The national curriculum states children should re read books a good way of doing that is to send it home after reading in school.
Yes a few books aren't returned or are damaged when sent home but not significant numbers.

The RWI books that get read in class have a paper version that sometimes gets sent home, depends on the group,really. They're not really 'reading books' in the way the ORT books ,and other reading schemes are...they're quite a specific format that compliments the RWI lessons.
Our children have daily RWI lessons, but are also assessed and colour banded for guided reading and home reading. It works pretty well - they just use their RWI knowledge to help them read the reading books. We ,as staff , use the RWI format for sounding,blending and spelling etc throughout all lessons.

I presume you are using loosely banded decodeable schemes for your guided reading and home reading schemes though. So it must be possible to send home books that are vaguely in line with children's developing phonic knowledge.