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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Oxford Reading Tree

25 replies

JonesTheSteam · 05/03/2007 10:31

DD has arrived home with an Acorns poetry book (Colour Poems). I felt that it was too easy and looked on the ORT website.

According to the ORT website this is a stage 3-4 book.

Before this she was coming home with Stage 5 story books. She wasn't finding them too hard. Why has she been sent home with this book?

Would you say something to the teacher (not the most approachable TBH)? Starting to think they are not pushing her enough.

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coppertop · 05/03/2007 10:34

Is it to introduce poetry rather than to practise reading, IYSWIM?

Hulababy · 05/03/2007 10:37

It could also be to increase breadth of reading, rather than just reading through a reading scheme.

singersgirl · 05/03/2007 10:39

If the school organises the books into Book Bands, as some schools do, different levels of the same scheme can end up in the same band - as the other posters have said, reading poetry is different from reading prose and your DD may be learning about rhythm, metre, scansion and rhyme.

Original poster

JonesTheSteam · 05/03/2007 10:39

But there are similar poetry books at Stage 5.

If they were going to use the Stage 3/4 ones shouldn't they have introduced them when children were at Stage 3/4? Perhaps I'm just being a bit thick?

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Original poster

JonesTheSteam · 05/03/2007 10:40

They are actually Oxford Reading Tree poetry books.

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marmiteontoast · 05/03/2007 10:41

Often, the poetry books, factual books etc. are trickier for children to read. I would say nothing, and wait for at least a week before going in, and you'll probably find she moves onto something else soon.

As for "pushing," all reading is valid, and once a child is at this level, she could certainly start to read well-loved picture books as well as school books.

Original poster

JonesTheSteam · 05/03/2007 10:43

She does read other books with me at home, including poetry books.

I just wonder what the worth is of plodding through reading schemes book by book, when the child is obviously more capable.

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marmiteontoast · 05/03/2007 10:47

This is the way school reading generally works, until a child is a free reader.

You could try making an appointment with the teacher for a discussion about your dd's progress, and find out if it would be appropriate to move on to the next stage, but he/she may not agree with you!

goingfor3 · 05/03/2007 10:48

If you are reading other books with her at home I wouldn't worry. I used to get really frustrated that DD was getting books that were not challenging her in any way so I bought some of my own and we go to the library twice a week. Now I'm not fussed about what she gets from school. As she has gone down a level wait and see which books she gets next and then speak to the teacher if they are still from the lower level.

justtheone · 05/03/2007 11:36

JonesTheSteam, I am in exactly the same situation as you. DS started ORT Level 6 in December and has had absolutely no problems reading the books. In recent weeks he has been getting factual books and poetry books at lower levels. He is a little disenchanted by it!

Tonight I have a consultation with his teacher and will ask about the criteria used to go to the next level. Like you, I think that there is no challenge for him.

kookaburra · 05/03/2007 11:53

This one struck home as I have just this weekend written an irritable message in DS2's reading diary. Teacher has not heard him read at all, classroom assistant heard him read in September! Basically we just read all kinds of books together at home, and the ORT book just comes and goes in his bag - only useful as weight training for himHis reading ability is considerably better than the level of book he gets, but as the teacher does not hear him read she would not be aware of this.
Would make more of a fuss, but think we will be moving him instead.

singersgirl · 05/03/2007 12:08

What I meant was that some schools organise their books into one of a number of Book Band systmes, and the levels of the Book Bands don't always correspond to the stages of the scheme books. I guess they use different criteria to level the books.

This chart shows how the ORT storybooks and plays are organised according to one scheme. Stages 6,7 and 8 can all appear in the same band.

goingfor3 · 05/03/2007 12:31

singersgirl - Thanks for that chart as my daughters school uses that colour band scheme with all of their books. They fit tham all not only ORT into those bands, it's good it have it all on paper.

justtheone · 05/03/2007 12:47

singergirl, great chart. I have looked on the ORT website before but have not seen this chart. It gives me a better idea of what band DS is in but does not explain why he sometimes gets very simplistic books in much lower bands. These tend to be the factual books. Maybe he gets them for factual content and not to extend his reading skills.

Currently DS has no problems with the words, punctuation, understanding of content or length of the books. So it will be interesting to hear why he has spent more than 3 months at the same level of books.

Original poster

JonesTheSteam · 05/03/2007 12:59

Don't think our school does the banding thing - nothing was mentioned in the literacy talk with the head of KS1 english before she entered reception.

The poetry books don't actually appear on the banding thing, though - very confused now!!

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justtheone · 09/03/2007 12:12

I spoke to DS's teacher on Monday and mentioned my concern over his reading books. His school also use colour bands and the teacher said books are included in the band for different reasons;

some books to ensure that they continue with a particular story or set of characters (e.g. Magic Key);
fairytales because the children tend to like them;
non-fiction to get them used to indices, contents and different formats of text;
poetry to help their rhyme and rhythm.

I got the impression that they take some care in banding the books.

She mentioned that it is also important that he reads his school library books (they choose 3/week) and that somebody reads to them. She is a very experienced teacher and she definitely put my mind at rest.

julienetmum · 10/03/2007 23:17

Wow, thanks for that chart. We got a note a few weeks ago about books not being the same stage and stuff about bands but I didn;t understand it one bit.

From lookin gat that chart I can now see that dd is on yellow band 3.

On the chart it says Nat curriculum level 1 is yellow band, is that something to do with SATS reading levels (dd's school doesn't do SATS so it's not something I know about. She is in reception.

toadstool · 14/03/2007 21:56

I'm having problems with this system, tbh. DD started quite positively with pink band in term 1, progressed to red band, and now thinks she is on band yellow (i.e. 3?) but actually can't cope at all. She's frustrated and is now refusing to read anything at all. It took all of last week to get through one rubbish Magic Key story, and there was no time to read anything else after the daily messing and wailing had ended. I found out tonight it's because her best friend is on yellow box so she wants to be on it too. I told her to go back to the red box but she wants to persevere - it seems pointless at this stage, though.

slalomsuki · 15/03/2007 13:52

Great chart, thanks and just in time for parents evening

We are doing a book a night and we have to plod through all the books in one level before the next but it is taking us a month roughly to go through a level

frances5 · 16/03/2007 10:04

(((((((toadstool))))))))) and ((((((toadstool dd))))))))))))

I really feel your daughter and its sad that she is feeling so negative about reading. Have you talked to your daughter's teacher.

It might be worth taking a break from getting her to read books and just read to her if it is making her that unhappy. Reading should be one of life's pleasures rather than a battleground.

If you buy the Jolly Phonics Handbook then you can teach her the letter sounds and diagraphs and how to blend words. When she is confident with blending you could get her some decodable books like the Jolly Readers or Jelly and Bean to build her confidence. Children often become resistant to reading as they hate failure.

Admitally this hard if you don't have your teacher onside. Prehaps its better to wait until the summer holidays. She is still really little and there is plenty of time.

Hulababy · 16/03/2007 10:07

slalomsuki - that is what DD's school does - all 18 books read for each level, before progressing. In between each leel we also have other books to read before ext stage is started. And we did another scheme's books (Ladybird) before even starting ORT - which seemed like a huge step backwards.

Hav egiven up thinking about it too much now. We read the school book each night, and then we just enjoy reading DD's other books that she chooses instedad. Figure that broadens her reading vocab, etc. anyway and she is then reading for fun rather than a chore.

julienetmum · 17/03/2007 00:20

Well it seems dd has been put up a band now into blue. She came home tonight to tell me that her and 1 other girl are not in a reading group anymore becasue they can read on their own.

She seems very proud of this so I take it to mean she is ahead for her age.

justtheone · 17/03/2007 07:58

I have found another banding of reading books... book levels

frances5 · 17/03/2007 19:07

I think its sad and very blinkered to measure reading progress with reading bands. There are so many aspects to reading. The type of books that a child finds difficult depends a lot on how they have been taught to read in the early inital stages.

A child taught by synthetic phonics can be thrown by a simple word like "ice-cream" in a stage one reading book, yet they can read a fairly long book that only uses letter sounds they know. Conversely children who learn by look-say have problems when there are new words and no pictures to help.

toadstool · 17/03/2007 20:45

Frances5, thank you! We had a word with DD's teacher who wasn't aware of a problem. She said 'Don't push it', and to allow her to do what she likes for a while, which is what we're doing. Result! She chose to read through a much simpler book very confidently last night. I agree that banding is, to me, pretty pointless - they'll all get there in the end, it shouldn't be competitive, and it's certainly not a race. Apparently I refused to read in reception too- now I'm the biggest bookworm around...

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