Are phonics books harder to read than things like ORT?

[GreenEggsAndSpam]

Just wondering really. ORT have tricky words in them, but children can work them out from the picture or using the first and last letters. The phonics books I have seen rely pretty much on just using the phonics sounds. Does anyone have a child using schemes from both books, and if so, are they on the same level in each scheme? nyone care to comment?

.{smile}

ORT are not phonics readers - they work on mainly sight vocabulary and you can give the child the words they do not know.
It does help children to learn the most common sight words, BUT they must also learn how to use phonics to decode, as they cannot memorise every word in the english language!
Which phonics books are you refering to? the ones that are published by OUP (who do the main ORT ones?)

My DS had ORT books and phonics worksheets, so I don't have any direct experience of phonics books. But I would expect that the "levels" of any series of books only applied to them and couldn't really be compared between different schemes. So, they might be on different levels if they're using phonic books than they would be in ORT, but it doesn't really mean anything.

I guess which ones are "easier" depends what clicks with your child really, I was happy with the mix that DS got between phonics, ORT and "shared reading" since he progressed well

I think a phonics based approach is best - particularly when starting off. It's much easier for children to de-code the words, build up a good bank of words they can read and build their confidence. Introducing sight words more slowly is better imo.

Our school uses Jolly Phonics when starting off but then uses different reading schemes mixed together later on which seems to work well.

Yes, AMIN, you're right - levels don't apply across schemes, and the mix your DS got sounds great!

My dd (Yr R) was taught Jolly Phonics and is pretty secure with them, although some of the last sounds like OA and EAR she doesn't always 'see' in words. She is on blue book band level phonic books - they don't have that many words in them, and the words are all decodable. With ORT though, she is on Level 6 (which I believe is mainly equivalent to green/orange book band level). These books are not phonic, but she reads them with ease as she has a wide vocabulary and instinctively knows what the word 'should' be iykwim?.

I wonder which set of skills are valued more? Obviously the important thing is that she is enjoying books, but it seems like her phonic skills are not keeping pace with her other reading skills. Is this making any sense????

I think some children just "get" one method better than the other. I know synthetic phonics has the best overall results, but my DS liked the fact that he could progress quickly to more interesting books on ORT, so I think a lot of his early progress came from that rather than the phonics. In the long run they need both though, but I'm sure the phonics will catch up over time.