Phonics experts - come talk to me!!

[Babypythagorus]

I'm new to primary (background in secondary) and there seem to be some very well informed ppl on here!

My school currently uses thoroughly mixed methods to teach reading, with incredibly old Ginn reading books. We are investing in ORT, and I wonder if any of you can tell me:

• where is the research often quoted on here that solely teaching SSP will ensure a higher % kids learn to read? The Rose report is often cited, but I can't find that particular bit in it.
  

• How does ORT work, in class and at home? Their website is impenetrable...
  

• which ORT sets are fully decodable? (And, for that matter, what does that phrase mean?! Surely all books are at some point?)
  

And lastly;

• what would you recommend I read to learn about this?!
  

Thanks phonics pros :)

[Norestformrz]

Songbirds have Six books at level 1 and six at level 1+

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

they've added 'More songbirds' packs at levels 1+ to 4 so there are 12 per level.

The second set of books at each level revises all the sounds at that level though. So you still have the issue of only having one title for introducing a sound or set of sounds.

[Norestformrz]

We use them as class 1-1 and home readers.

[cantkeepawayforever]

A model I have seen work well is a main set of 'spine' readers and then things like Songbirds used to 'pad out' the books at each level, because they're available more cheaply and so can give variety at lower cost than investing in more of the 'spine' books, if that makes sense? I would agree that Songbirds on their own have too few books at each step to provide the 'only reading scheme'.

Their main use is as 1:1 in class and home readers, rather than 'teaching from the books' in class, if that makes sense?

[Norestformrz]

Book 1 Level 1 and book 1 Level 1+ don’t cover the same set of sounds so you only have one book for each set

[Babypythagorus]

Which schemes do you like that have several books?

We use jolly phonics and aren't looking to change that...

[Norestformrz]

I used Jolly Phonics for about twenty years (there really wasn’t anything else at the start) and found it works really well in reception but peters out in Key Stage 1 with not enough guidance for teachers (and only coverage of a few alternative ways to spell the sounds) so relied heavily on teacher knowledge.

We use Dandelion launchers and readers as our main scheme (that gives us seven books for each unit we teach if needed) and in the early units we also have the Sounds Write books. In addition to this we have Songbirds, Rapid Phonics, Phonics Bugs, project X phonics, Reading with phonics, Magic Belt, Talisman, Totem, Titans Gauntlet, Rescue, Alba, Moon Dog and Amber Guardian books for children who needs more reinforcement. We did have Floppys phonics and Bug Club but no longer use these.