Reading Chest

[Oscha]

DD (5, in Reception) has been reading Green books for a few months and is fluent with them the majority of the time. Her teacher wants her to stay on Green for now, which is fine, but we've run out of Reading Chest books she can read (or will, at least, as she's not interested in the 'how to build a tamborine' type ones they have). If I switch her subscription to Orange are they going to be really hard? I'm guessing there will be sounds/words she hasn't been taught to decode yet? I don't want to put her off but I equally don't want to lose momentum as she's absolutely loving reading at the moment.

There will be a lot of words she DOES know, and I guess she will have an idea how to 'sound out' ones she doesn't know, so you can help her over the harder words. I wouldn't think it will be a huge jump, but I'll give you my standard advice:

When reading harder books with a child, get him to point to words as he goes along. If he knows the word, or can sound it out, he can say it. If he doesn't know the word, he can hover his finger over it, and YOU say the word for him. Don't stop to analyse or discuss the word at this stage, but try and keep the 'flow' of reading going. Review difficulties at the end, if you wish to. This way, he has the satisfaction of reading more difficult books, without the fear of getting 'stuck' on words.

I think the differences between green and orange are not too big.
You could sign up to oxford owl for free and go and look at the free e books if you want

www.oxfordowl.co.uk

I agree have a look at the free e books and if you need to tell her any words she's not ready.

Thanks all, I'll have a look at that website and remember that tip about harder words! I might order one lot of Orange and just see what they're like.

I'd strongly advise against following that advice

Why's that? Also, re. what you said about if there are words she doesn't know, then she's not ready, how can she learn the ones she doesn't know without being exposed to them? Is there a resource you can recommend that I could use with her?

She's bored of re-reading the same books. I understand her teacher can't teach every child individually and as a whole, the class are supposed to be reading yellow books this term so the teacher really doesn't want her to move up another colour band. I'm not at all confident that they'll get to the phonics/tricky words/etc required for orange this term (and as far as I know there's no plan to do so) but she's going to lose interest if she has to keep re-reading books she's already read and discussed to death.

It's a mixed year group class so I have wondered if she could do some stuff with Year 1-but I imagine they're well ahead of where she is. Argh.

Tbh we missed green but we jumped from green to turquoise and apart from being longer my DS hasn't found them a lot harder. A couple of words a book have puzzled him on first read but they are mostly sounded out.
Only real issues are the ough words and some names but that's same as before.

That's interesting Tomorrow - we have come across some ough words in books I've read to her (she likes to follow along) and I haven't known how to explain the reason behind the difference between, for example, though and tough!

Our teacher told us to take them on a case by case basis. Bloody sound has a lot of different ways to pronounce, I read 14 I think.

"Why's that? Also, re. what you said about if there are words she doesn't know, then she's not ready, how can she learn the ones she doesn't know without being exposed to them" books should match her current phonics knowledge and skills she shouldn't be expected to independently read books beyond her ability. By telling her the words you're sending the message that it's too difficult and can't be read by decoding and for some children this creates a barrier
The coloured book banding system is based on discredited multi cueing methods so are a poor way to allocate books.
If you really want to use these books help her to decode the words. She says the sounds she knows and you supply any unknown sounds so that she is decoding the word not being told the word.

"Only real issues are the ough words" many of the so called ough words are ou +gh words don't group by letter content

If you start orange now,are you going to to run out of books over the summer holiday?
What about mixing in some of the level below as well, assuming there are still some there to hold her interest.

Have a look at the Oxford phonics spelling dictionary. I've found it a really useful resource for my DD. Also, does your library have any books she could read?

Also the topics get more complex in later books and may provoke more questions from a five year old.

Green in one scheme may be harder or easier than green in another.

If the main problem is that you are short of books, then no harm in going "down" a stage in another scheme for a bit of variety. I don't believe that every book DC reads needs to be "peak difficulty".

"Green in one scheme may be harder or easier than green in another" they shouldn't be that's the whole reason for book banding

Thanks all, this is really interesting with lots for me to think about.

Tomorrow that's a really good point - I think part of the problem at the moment is that although we talk about the stories and characters, there's nothing that takes longer than a few minutes really as the books are only a few sentences on each page, and only 25 or so pages! Though to be fair we've had a few that have really piqued her interest.

We've just had gold panning and time travel to the Victorian times in last three books he's had as well as art and why we should keep our things safe. They definitely get more elaborate later on and that has led to interesting discussions.

They sound brilliant!