Learning to read - phonics and reading schemes

[aintnomountainhighenough]

I would be interested to understand from other parents and teachers how their school is teaching phonics and how it is being supported i.e. what reading scheme/s is/are being used.

I have heard that ORT books don't work with/support jolly phonics. Does anyone know if this is correct? If so could anyone advise which schemes (apart from books that are produced by Jolly Phonics) do support it.

Of course the reason for this post is that my DD has just started reception and they are sending ORT (Kipper) books home.

Thanks

same here. We got first kipper book yesterday and it would appear they are doing jolly phonics - at least they have done S and A, I am expecting T, P, I and N any day now!
DD knows all her letters from letterland - jolly phonics just didn't spark her imagination at all.

My dd has just started reception and they are doing jolly phonics and yes, they are bringing ORT books home, had the first lot last week. Can I ask why they don't work in conjunction with each other and where you heard it? Am incredibly curious.

ORT does not work well with a synthetic phonics scheme. There are lots of random words which children have to learn as sight vocabulary. Our school switched to a mixture of Jolly Phonics and Ruth Miskin books, which allow children to use their phonic knowledge and to be successful right at the start. The intention should always be that children become independent successful readers and stop needing the support of any kind of sheme book.

FANTASTIC deal on Ruth Miskin books from the bookpeople at the moment.

Thanks for replies so far and sorry for creating this twice. I had a feeling that it didn't work together but wanted this confirmed. It is interesting that other schools are also sending ORT books home when the two don't mix. Does anyone know why the schools continue to do this? I am trying to gather information and to ascertain how much of a problem this is before going to see the head.

We had ORT at my son's school and I think it is quite based on the 'whole' word style of reading, but does use phoncis as well - it's just not quite so focussed on it as much as jolly phonics and those. I've heard a really good phoncis set is by Ruth Miskin 'read,write inc phonics'.

It was highly recommended by a primary school teacher friend of mine, and then we started selling it through Mini-IQ (I'm an associate) so was very pleased to see it!

xpost Rapunzel!

I don't know the book people were doing a deal on them too!!

but it's good to hear others recomending them as I hadn't come across them until recently.

my school dosent just do ort, ds2 in reception hasnt had one yet, reading 360 scheme at the moment, but they will come.

Thanks, will dig my Book People booklet out and order the Ruth Miskin ones.

I have to say, I have 9 yrs between my dcs and I am not looking forward to spending my late afternoons with Biff, Chip and flaming Kipper again. Ah well.

Children need to learn a variety of ways of learning to read. JP teachs then the phonics approach, but the ORT (a) has stories which amuse and motivate children and (b) teach them to use picture clues and work out words via context. They need a mixture of books.

Plus lots of schools simply cannot afford to replace their reading books.

our school has a variety of books and schemes, which are all colour coded and the child just pickes a book out of the right colour basket. Far better than a single scheme imo.

having just read 'The Wedding' of ort ( think it's level 4) I had a good laugh at the dancing at the reception. They do put a bit of humour in there for the adults !

Collins Big Cat range complements phonics teaching in school. Also available from the Book People I think. Amazon have a huge range. There is a set we have in school aimed at Reception with CVC titles like "Top Cat" but I can't seem to find them anywhere online although I know the Book People did have them once.

cazzybabs I agree that they need a range of books however what I think is frankly poor is re-introducing phonics and making a big song and dance about it in the press and then schools not having the materials to support this process. IMO they should have a full plan of introducing it using the correct materials and then use the other materials when children become more able. We keep hearing how much this government has spent on education and I am wondering where all the money has gone if they can't even afford books to fully support jolly phonics.

all kids are different too though
both of mine detested the letterland, dressing letters up as othe things
they both wanted direct answers
yeah but what does the letter say mummy...
On that point we use Bobs Books
herewe picked them up while in the US and dd picked up reading as easy as you like aged just under 4.
oddly when she started montessori aged 4, this is also what they used and she progressed very quickly
But I did learn from ds1 starting school that sometimes it is easier to do what they do or your children can get a bit hassled about their way being the wrong way...
I have left dd for ages and now she has startied reception am pleased they only bring home big story books to share.

wheresthehamster are you referring to the Usborne phonics books. Sam Sheep Can't Sleep, Fat Cat on a Mat etc etc.

Yep agree all kids are different and don't misunderstand me I am not going to start pushing her to read other stuff at home. I simply think that is it poor if ORT books don't fully support children when they are starting to read.

Hmm, my ds had speech therapy when he started school, which always includes phonics. At the time they didn't teach phonics in the main school, but they did use the ORT and his reading has always been 'above' the national average, due in large part, I am guessing to the use of phonics in his speech therapy.

They look similar but these were definitely Big Cat. I'm on a mission now - I can't go to bed until I track those books down. Wish I could remember some of the other titles.

I actually like the way our school do it. They do use ORT as their core book set, but they use lots of different reading schemes alongside. Neighbouring schools bring home 4 ORT books at a time and are hammering thru. At ours they are only really reading the 'core ORT' books (i.e.6 on each level not 18). Then they usually bring home 1-2 books from the 'box' which basically consists of books from a variety of reading schemes to give them diversity. (I have quite enjoyed reading about Ben the dog from teh Ginn scheme which I read when I was little). They then have a library book which is fiction or non-fiction but not reading scheme based.

TBH if they are teaching teh phonics the way the government intended (or at least my interpretation of it) they won't bring home a single reading book until they know all 44 phenomes. And although that is reported to work it would be a very hard thing to do as parents expect books from teh first weeks and are not set up for the mind-set of no reading books within 4hrs of starting school

www.jellyandbean.co.uk

The jelly and bean books about two cats are good books for supporting Jolly phonics. I think they are best for begining readers because they start off very simple. The jolly Readers are good books for more confident readers, but they do start at quite a hard level.

The Oxford Reading Tree Songbird books are excellent. They are written by the same person who wrote the "Gruffalo" books.

I would not have your child read books until they can decode words. Otherwise the only reading stragery they have is guessing. Its important to encourage children to use decoding as their principle method of decoding a word they have never seen before. Instead I would get your child to practice blending simple words with word boxes. The Jolly phonic handbook has lists of suitable words for practicing blending.

Contrary to popular belief there is more to Jolly Phonics than just learning a few hand actions. All the hand actions are for is to make learning letter sounds a bit more fun for little ones.

The most important thing about synthetic phonics is that children learn that most unknown words can be decoded by blending and segmenting letter sounds. Although there are a few tricky words, most words can be worked out by following a logical set of rules.

The Rose Report makes it clear that children should not be taught to guess from pictures. The pictures are there to help with comprehension NOT with decoding.

Ha! Completely wrong as usual!
They are the songbird books I was trying to think of AND by ORT!

Most of the extra money for schools has gone on building work and staffing. But I do agree it is poor not to have the material to support the JP programme.

Be careful with some of the ORT phonics books - they are not truely phonetic. The songbird ones are fine I think.

We have some Bob books from amazon which were cheap and good. They is some free stuff to download on www.syntheticphonics.com/.

Thanks that is very useful. I have seen the Songbird ones in the library and agree they look good. I guess I just feel it is a little unplanned at the moment. If it is generally felt that not having books home until they know the sounds completely then I wish it was done that way rather than sending books with no words!

The books with no words are to encourage children to talk about the story, develop comprehension skills etc. Many children just want to work out what the words say without paying much attention to the story.