ORT levels/stages and new NC

[Hiddeninplainsight]

So my children's school uses ORT, which now goes up to level 20. I was having a little look into the scheme, and found this (on phone and can't remember how to get the link to work -sorry!) fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/oxed/primary/literacy/treetops/TreeTops%20ipdf.pdf?region=uk

which I thought was quite interesting. It was particularly page 7, which has the revised levels charts. I know that the new ORT books are levelled based on phonics stages, but I thought that the increase to stage 11 as expected at the end of Y2 (or at least from ORT - I think it says 10 should be okay for 'expected' at the end of the year).

I was curious if any teachers have thoughts on the scheme, and this compared to accelerated reader.

Can you imagine teaching English based on Run DMC, Obama's inaugural speech and The Hobbit?

Isn't that just the sort of thing you can do easily at home? DD is 5, she spends a lot of time "learning English" from songs, she won't recognise much Run DMC (pretty much just walk this way I imagine) but we spend loads of time discussion lyrics of songs and books. She's probably learnt more vocabulary from those than anything else, particular now her reading speed is fast enough for Karaoke.

Sir Fred, clearly it is always good when families have time to do that sort of thing at home. Given I'm not a teacher, and our evenings are about getting the children fed and into bed, and weekends are generally either about chores or going out and doing stuff in the outside world, it isn't something we could easily do at home. Not in the structured way i would imagine it is done in school anyway. But I wouldn't see that it would need to be an either or. Great to do at home, great to do in school. And I agree Rafa, great texts for all kids.

I'm clearly different in that I don't particularly imagine a "structured way" of school being too relevant, particularly as part of creating a love of reading - nothing school structured is likely to do that in my head. Your earlier question was about home reading though - so that is what I was commenting on - if you're finding time for home reading, lack of time can't be a complaint?

I'm also different of course in that I see the love of reading as an entirely different thing from the technical skill of reading, and that the love of reading is born from the love of story with reading simply being a good route to access it. Learn the technical skills in school.

I guess the fundamental difference though, is a 5 year old who goes to sleep at 11pm, so there's plenty of time for doing all sorts of stuff.

"I'm also different of course in that I see the love of reading as an entirely different thing from the technical skill of reading"

I'd agree many good readers never choose to read for enjoyment but if you can't read or struggle it's very difficult to get any pleasure from the activity.

I don't think fred was suggesting it was either or. Or that one was more important than the other. Just that they were different skills and are developed in different ways.

Tbh, I suspect that most able and avid readers could just be left to get on with it at home by year 5/6. Not reading widely enough is rarely an issue for them.

I wasn't suggesting they were...I agreed

My daughter achieved level 6 reading in primary school and hardly ever chooses to read for pleasure (one or two books per year at the most).

Sorry, I misread the tone and intention of the 2nd part of that sentence.

I was talking about able and avid readers. I agree able readers who don't enjoy reading are a whole different ball game. I'm not sure comprehension exercises on extracts are really going to help there though whether it's in school or at home.

I think you may have misinterpreted what I was interested in/trying to say Fred. Or perhaps I misinterpreted your post. My DD is an avid reader. She devours books and has a very clear idea of her preferences (Fantasy, but with pretty wide reading around that). She adores reading at home. Her comprehension and literary preferences were well beyond her decoding ability until she had been reading for about 18-24 months (she didn't read before reception). But in that time she made extremely fast progress.

The issue we have, and hence my questions, is exactly about what she is given and asked to do in school, and the material she has to work with there. Reading for pleasure to devour a story isn't the same as unpicking one from an English literature perspective. That is what they are trying to work on in school. And the book selection I linked to just seemed to me to be a considerably more interesting way of working on that then ORT.

So the issue is that your dd isn't getting work at her ability levels?
Sadly, I don't think state school get enough funding to specially cater for one outlier child ime. (I'm sure school like mrz' s is different though.)
Best bet is for you to teach her( if I remember correctly, you have a degree in Eng Lt?), or get a tutor for her, maybe?

Irvine that is the issue (still ), but actually, there are a few children in her class, and some in other classes who are also pretty high achieving. The school are actually pretty open to the nudges and prods I've been giving them, and have said they are going to develop their curriculum to ensure their higher achieving pupils are also being challenged . However, I'm not sure if they will get as far as DD, but I am hopeful. I just find it really helpful to understand as much as I can how what they are doing at school works. Honestly, it does make me really grateful to the teachers on here who take the time to answer questions because I have learnt so much from here about how things work. So Mrz and Rafa, a very explicit thank you. Clearly there is lots I don't know, but I do feel your answers and perspectives puts me in a better position to advocate to a school who I do think are open to helping.

I would quite like the idea of working with DD at home, but I'm really not a very good teacher (for children anyway). I'm too much of a perfectionist and impatient, and they are NOT good teaching traits. And I honestly don't have time. We do piano at home, and homework, but then I try to make time to do lego, curl up and read to DD (she still loves me reading to her, but we don't have time at bedtime because I read to younger DS), play games (my ideals, they happen less often than I would like). And I must be honest, she is at school so much, I want to try and make that a positive experience (I'm also biased because I LOVED school as a child - horrah for the ILEA in 70s/80s - but that is a whole different thread!!). And actually, I guess I'm interested in education anyway.

I guess I just don't see kids doing any literary criticism - where the quality of the text is perhaps particularly relevant, although the interest of a particular text is not going to be universal, and age appropriateness would be difficult even if they were, there being few texts which are both interesting and appropriate for all six/seven year olds.

I just thought the use of reading in class was about comprehension, and providing a route to discussion. So DD, (summer born YR1) could trivially read and understand their first book - Beegu - but was still interested in the discussions they had of how they could change the story what was happening etc. The book was nothing like James and the Giant Peach which read the same week at home, but I just never thought the reasons for reading were similar. And I can't see why the story/poem/news article used to lead the discussion needs to be particularly exciting, or specific, and I like the idea of novelty.

DD is still a couple of years behind your DD though, so maybe the nature of studying will change, no idea what the school will be doing with books by then, for home readers, we just do the one book a week, ten minutes, and the rest read from her own choice - currently Scream Street and Horrible Histories.

Just how many times have you been in and prodded them?

What exactly is it that makes you think they are not challenging their pupils in reading? Is it text selection across all reading, the books they send home or the types of activities they are asking pupils to do?

I think I used to get so worried that my ds isn't stretched enough before.

His main interest was maths and programming for long time, but that changed last year, in yr3. Since last year, my ds started to explore a lot more freely into other things.
He spends far more time practicing piano and doing mfl now. also spends a lot of time doing ex-cul activities.

Still loves watching you tube videos on maths, etc., but I am far more relaxed about how he is progressing at school now. He knows what he wants to do. And I just follow his interests to help him.

It's great that your dd's school is trying to accommodate her needs. Hope everything goes well for your dd.

It may depend on your objective. There is value in using increasingly more complex texts in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure. In fact it's necessary in order to develop their comprehension. But you need to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that just because a text is simpler, it can't challenge the more able.

As an example, I'm reading both The Hobbit and A Monster Calls at the moment. Two very different books in terms of ease of decoding and vocab. But both are capable of providing challenge at KS3 in terms of deeper understanding of the themes.

They haven't taken out a restraining order yet Rafa, which must be a good sign

In terms of the knowing she wasn't being challenged with reading/comprehension, it was (and is) the incredibly large discrepancy between what she has to read at home (for which the only required activity is reading a couple of pages out loud and reading the rest herself), and what she reads for pleasure. Given that the books she brings home are the same level of book they work on in school (in group reading/discussion groups), it gives a good idea of what level they had her working at school. Relative to what she loves to read, these books were linguistically and structurally very formulaic and simplistic and she hated reading them. I was interested to know how much was to do with the level they had her on, and what was ORT specific (why I was looking at the stuff that I put into the OP). She was frustrated, and I didn't want her to disengage with school and reading in school (I want her to love primary school like I did - the passion for learning has served me well in life). Learning should be inspiring and amazing. DD loves a challenge. Given the discrepancy between school and home, and the fact that school aren't psychic and so can only go on the information that they are getting from my quiet DD in school (unless I share more information with them), I've been in (with objective assessment which is very useful for helping them and me past the worry that I'm just a very delusional mum), and so fingers crossed.

Irvine sounds like your DS is doing great at the moment.

Fred guided reading has changed moving up the levels in DD's school. Although comprehension has been important through out, at the higher levels it really is about developing a deeper understanding of what they are reading. This is a great thing, but not so great if the material is formulaic and dull (I am not a fan of ORT at the higher levels - although both my kids rather loved the magic key books - not saying that makes them any good, but they were popular!).

Cross-post Rafa. I do agree with you when it comes to proper books. But I do have my massive doubts when compared to Treetops, and I must also admit to totally hating abbreviated classics. Perhaps the stories/themes might be interesting, but give children the originals. Or, if they aren't considered appropriate, use real books that are.

simplistic and formulaic is par for the course with ORT.

It's why I don't particularly like them as a stand alone scheme. They are OK if there's other stuff for children to read too.

If I was assessing a Year 2 child using the Big Reading criterion I would use something like Nippper McFee as expected and It's a dogs life for exceeding but would be looking for more than the ability to read the text and basic understanding (so meeting 20+ standards)
I currently have a five year old in my class with a Reading age of ten plus but she wouldn't meet all the standards although her basic comprehension is good so the assessment shows me which areas we need to work on for her to improve.

We don't use guided reading instead we have challenging whole class texts.