ORT lvl 1 (pink band)

[northerngoldilocks]

Asked for a book with words for my reception child and got sent home 'the pancake'. Not sure if I'm missing something but how is this a lvl 1 book? It has 'the', 'frying', 'butter' and 'milk' in it. Surely the first stage books should all be CVC words. Did ORT just get confused on this one? Was expecting the usual fun with mops and hats!

No, it’s many joys of look and say old b and c books. Just fill in words they can’t sound out.

Thanks- thought it seemed weird that they'd be expected to have learned 'ing' by this point!

She won’t be. Some of the pink ones are harder that the reds imo. Also if they have different schemes in the bands there will be some differences too at all the levels.

“Not sure if I'm missing something but how is this a lvl 1 book? It has 'the', 'frying', 'butter' and 'milk' in it. “ it’s an extremely old Look and Say book (originally written over 30 years ago to support guessing strategies). It doesn’t match current expectations that children are allocated books matching their phonic knowledge.

We've had a similar problems. The books should be decodable, but we have often had very old books that aren't sent home.

I ended up getting my own books, the Songbirds reading books by Julia Donaldson are very good.

Thankfully for her she's a complete parrot so memorised it easily. I've commented in her reading record that this is a v odd book for lvl 1- will see what they say. I'm not worried overall, have plenty of books at home (decodable ORT and Usbourne easy readers) but was baffled by the choice for a first book with words! I'm assuming that they just picked up anything from the lvl 1 basket though.

It's often the kids that choose the books

Not 1 month into reception! Definitely the case later on though

“Thankfully for her she's a complete parrot so memorised it easily” unfortunately that can be a problem as children move through the school and are unable to read unfamiliar words.

What scheme is she doing in school?

Ours do choose themselves one month into reception. From the pink box or blue box or whatever reading level they are on.

Mrz- I know but I'm not sure what to do really. I wrote in the reading record that it was an odd book as not cvc words as I'd expect but got back comments that it uses words with 'letters that we have been using to decode'.

We now have 'a good trick' which contains 'sheet' and 'little' as well as the title !!

If they'd just said that they didn't have enough fully decidable books I'd be happier than being essentially fobbed off. I also know (DD is my 2nd child) that there are loads about cats and mops and hats so no idea why we are getting these ones. They do ORT and songbirds generally

Also to clarify - I know that the kids don't chose in reception at her school

You sound pretty clued up, northerngoldilocks. If I were ypu, I wouldn't bother reading the school books unless they're appropriate. Instead I would either get phonics books elsewhere (book people are good, or borrow from reading chest) or I would just make up my own words and sentences for my DC to read.