having a spot o' trouble finding out about Oxford Reading Tree Levels

[BoysAreLikeDogs]

The OUP website kind of assumes that the reader is familiar with level 1/level 2 stages etc.

The school operates a box system, ie Green boxes 1 - 10 then progressing to Red boxes 1 - 10 then Blue boxes... you get the picture !

Just curious really as to what the levels actually are.

Anyone ?

If you google ORT it comes up with great info re stages etc - there was a post on this on Friday I think. Not very sure what the box system is all about!

Karen, I cant find it . Could you link for me please

I waded through some guff but no actual explanation specifically relating to each level. ( I could be having a thick moment)

There is a coloured system which applies across the various schemes. ORT levels are shown here but the colours used aren't the same as the cross referenced system !

Thanks for that link.... would I get frowned at if I asked where other Yr1 girls are on ORT? I think DD is a bit precocious, but maybe she's just normal for girls (stage 5-6 right now).

And more importantly... can someone anwer a hot Q in this house: are Chip and Biff twins or just close in age? If not twins, which one is older?

Cor LIZS that is exackerly what I wanted.

Thank you very much

GOT to be twins.

twins

In answer to your question about Yr 1 levels, all the yr 1 children at my dc's school are pretty much on stage 7 - 8; my dd (now Yr 2) started Yr 1 on about stage 8 and was a 'free reader' by Christmas.

Ds (Reception age) is on about stage 7 -their school do lots of different schemes and have them grouped by shape / colour (dd is on pink rectangle, ds on blue spot )

Thankfully my dcs were taught proper synthetic phonics so once it clicks they just fly with reading rather than the laborius 'going through the levels' in ORT (phew!)

lkjj - The majority of DS's Yr 2 friends are on level 8/9 atm.

Wow, Carbonel. Do they mostly get 3+ at KS1 SATs??? Our school is much more average than that.
DD is far ahead of DS at reading compared to the same age (and he is flying atm in y3). DD by everyone's assessment will not ask to be extended, so we might want to be pro-active about encouraging her to stretch herself rather than just coast along.
Thanks for the clarification about the twins... now, what kind of family calls their DD "Biff"??? Sounds like an acronym for a waste disposal method, doesn't it?

Oh thank you from me also for the link explaining who they all are. I always thought Biff was a boy!

lljkk they do not do SATS - one of the main resaons i chose the school

I think it just shows how good synthetic phonics can be when done wholeheartedly and properly!

What worked in 'extending' my two was getting books they love to read - for dd it was a whole lot of non fiction stuff, Kingfisher young knowledge, Dorling Kindersley Eye wonder etc - they have great illustrations and a range of type sizes so some is easy and some more tricky to read but because she wanted to know about things (esp animals) she read the trickier text too, so got better at it iyswim!

Ds thankfully has just followed her lead, (altho Transformers books have helped) but also once he knows he can do something he goes ahead and does it, it is in the tricky 'learning; stage where he will refuse to do things at all!

Good luck

well when my mum was setting up the characters for ds (she is a retired reception teacher and has my boys a few days a week) she said that Kipper was actually Christopher but he couldn't pronunce it so it became Kipper. Maybe there are similar explanations for Biff and Chip - because otherwise the mind just boggles!

There was thread on this once ! Think Biff was a derivative of Elizabeth.