oxford reading tree: kipper books without words

[witchwithallthetrimmings]

what's the point?
My DS has had a few of these and is very bored by them

Good luck then MollieO - let us know how it goes!

According to his teacher we have to stick with it and trust her. I've made my concerns clear so at least if ds completely loses interest in reading again she has been warned. She suggested that ds also read whatever else interests him as a 'reward' for doing the boring school stuff. Hopefully that may help. We now have the ORT Fireflies series - factual books - so hopefully a bit more interesting.

that's actually a v good idea about reward Mollie - may try the same!

I don't like the wordless books, but when one of my dds brought one home, when she was already a good reader, I asked the teacher what we should do with it, and the teacher (who knew that dd could already read) suggested dd wrote the story to go with the book. Dd wrote a long story and read it out loud to the class. She really enjoyed it, which made me think maybe there was a point to the wordless books after all, even for a child who's reading.

So there's my suggestion, they're books you can write the story for.

Brilliant idea Fennel! If we get another one that is what I will do with dd - who is obsessed with writing even though she can hardly read. Just need to make sure she doesn't actually write IN the book...

We are on the Kipper books and pretty bored too. The second one we got (surprise party) had obviously fallen apart and been stuck back together wrongly! I couldn't make head or tail of it, then DP deconstructed it and put it together so it made sense. How many kids over the years had racked their brains trying to make sense of it, probably getting discouraged..?

Understanding the structure of a story with a beginning, middle and end is really important for literacy, as once DCs get that they understand what they are actually reading for. But I agree with the PP who thought that they are most beneficial for DCs who have never read at home.

DD reads hers at home and to the teacher, and when she has read it really well in school with lots of explanation of what's on each page, and some ideas about other stuff (sub plots?!) she's moved onto the next one. I'm praying we won't have to go through twelve though!!

I was hearing readers today and one girl still had no words in her book. She told a good story but was unable to sound out any words - didn't seem to know her sounds yet - or recognise the names of the characters, so IMO not ready for words.

The no-words are great I think - child has chance to tell detailed story with lots of info. Sadly they often seem to stop doing this once on the books with words.

Maybe you'd be amazed but many many children of this age seem only to have two possible words for facial expressions, for example (happy and sad). Or maybe that's just where I live. One child today couldn't name the frying pan

I speak in defence of the Kipper etc books. My kids have loved them. The wordless ones are particularly popular with my DS. He 'reads' them to us and it makes him feel that he can read just like his big sister, he is 3. I think they are very worthwhile at that stage but not when actual reading starts.

You'd go through 12 books in 2.5 weeks. Small hardship, I would have thought.

Blueshoes - what makes you think they are getting a new one every day? At our school it is one a week (and not even every week) hence the tedium. And we are meant to read them every day

BTW does anyone else's dc start off each one with 'Once upon a time' and end it with 'And they all lived happily ever after'?

You can use them imaginatively! Reading isn't about racing up the levels. Hopefully, you are going to get a DC who reads with understanding and enjoyment. If you are letting your DC 'read' the wordless book with one short sentence a page then you are wasting an opportunity. Ask questions around it 'e.g. 'how do you think Kipper is feeling?' , 'why do you think he feels like that?', 'have you ever felt like that?' 'What do you think will happen next?' etc. When they have worked it all out, get them to read it to you straight through, with expression.
If they come home and pick up your attitude 'another, boring, wordless book' and they go through it once with 'kipper was in the garden' 'Kipper had a ball'etc of course it will be boring!

I am a reception teacher. Children in my class get wordless books until they know their sounds and can (begin to) blend them into words. Before they can do this, I think there is little point in giving out a book with words.

We hear children read and change their books once a week, but always make it clear that if a parent wants a change more often, thay are welcome to see us after school. We encourage parents not to stick to using just the book that goes home (there is no doubt they ARE tedious - I have 25 children in my class to hear every week!) - sharing other books at home and library books is fab.

Kathy - your dc is showing that she understands something about the structure of a story (it has a beginning and an end)and the special 'story' language sometimes used - the teacher should be v happy about this!

You can go to the library and get your own books.You can have the ORT as an addition, rather than rely on it.

WE have these books but the school sticks words on in speech bubbles, they encourage us to do the same as well. Therefore in Incy Wincy etc we have rain, whoosh, sun etc. DS finds the initial sounds, reads the words and we discuss the sounds in the middle especially things like ai that he knows. Next time we read it we make up our own and I write them on post its and stick them on. So incy many currently says ouch, later on he says I need my unbrella! All this is DS and what he picks up from the pictures on the page. While I write the words on the post its DS tells me the initial sounds, usually the final ones and any others he can decipher.

All the guidance for this though came from the school the first time we had one of these books home. It makes it really interesting and DS loves them! He can really make it his own and I'm happy that he's getting much more secure on his sounds etc.

Maybe if you send the book back with some post its stuck in the teacher may get the idea! It will also alleviate the boredom!

That's a fun idea HairyMaclary.
The other thing dd has done to make them more interesting was to do one in rhyme once - she is v good at making up rhymes - I didn't tell the teacher but maybe I should have done.... would have just felt a bit 'pushy mum' going 'look what my clever dd has done' though tbh I was pretty impressed.
Maybe I should encourage her to use a different verse form for each one

mind you her scansion was a bit out in places....

Kathy's idea is excellent. You could also write words that can be sounded out phonically e.g. 'dog', 'red' and then jumble them up, hold one up and say 'find me the page with that on it'. You could write a simple sentence together, e.g. 'Kipper was in the garden'. Write a second one to match and cut up the individual words. Match them up and put them on top. Try making the sentence without the strip. Ask questions, 'who is the story about?' -then we need to start with Kipper-find kipper,'which waord has the full stop afterit?' that must be the last word etc. (It gets them used to the fact that you read left to right [not obvious to a left hander!]and that sentences have a capital letter and full stop). Then cut up the strip and play snap with the words. Those are just off the top of my head-there are lots of possibilities. Act out the story! If you go through once with 'Kipper was in the garden','He has a ball'-you will not only both be bored rigid, put off ORT for life but you are missing opportunities to do all sorts of things with it.

My dd is also 'reading' these books.

IMHO a good mix of mainly free range (children's lit) and some battery books (reading schemes) is always advisable.

I think these 'no words ones' get children into the 'ORT' way of thinking. So when the words appear on the next stage they 'get' the characters, setting, their own biases as a reader and an expectation that basically the plot is likely to be something like:

1. everything will be great

2. until Floppy/Dad/Kipper mucks it up

3. and then everyone laughs on the last page (that usually has the words 'Oh no!')!!!

This later empowers the reader to really focus on reading the words using all the techniques they possibly can. They now know the other text features so well they can draw on a vast comprehension of the overall texts to 'work out' what an unknown word might be.

IMHO (again) This scheme is particularly good for children who do not have parents who read with them at home because they are so very very accesible!

The down side of them is that children who love literature, because they have always been read to, may actually find these books a little dull as in nature they do lack depth and variety(to begin with there is very litle variety and later I would argue no true variety).

So, like piscesmoon suggested we must make sure we are asking such children high quality and varied questions about the pictures (I also love the post-it ideas) as well as, of course, continuing in our reading of vast quantities of other high quality childrens picture books with them!

there are some brilliant suggestions here, thanks.

kathy, you have good pointers from other posters.

Is your dc in reception? I presume this is only the start of the year, hence one (wordless) book a week, or more. My dd got one library book from school a week (that I read to her) and one reading book a day, which I could read over one or a number of days - I just indicated to the teacher in the reading book where we got to.

Agree it is tedious to read the same book every day. I found my dd's reading really took off when I did the Jolly Phonics workbooks with her - there are 7 of them. If your school uses Jolly Phonics scheme (which I recommend BTW), I would use this time to gently introduce it.

Yes, she does Jolly Phonics & is in reception.
She knows most of the actions - & really enjoys doing them. She gets one book with words and one wordless one a week. The first couple she had to think about but the latest couple of books with words, she just read straight off, like someone who can read. (Obviously they're pretty simple.)
I wasn't going to fuss about her moving too slowly, if it is the schools' policy to move everyone along at the same speed, because she is quite young for her year and obviously has a lot of other skills to work on (her writing and coluring aren't brilliant) but I don't want to end up with her losing enthusiasm.
It is so tempting to just ignore the ORT books and read fun books with her but I don't want her to get held back by not showing sufficiently detailed knowledge of Biff & Chip etc if that's what the school uses as an index of where she is IYSWIM.

''It is so tempting to just ignore the ORT books and read fun books with her but I don't want her to get held back by not showing sufficiently detailed knowledge of Biff & Chip etc if that's what the school uses as an index of where she is IYSWIM.''

My thoughts exactly Kathy. We seem to have just dropped the wordless books though.

My DD only had 2 of these last year, but I think thats because she already knew her letters when she started reception and was blending them pretty quickly... other children had more. My take on it was that if you aren't interested in them then just sign and send back. I'd only be annoyed if my DC could blend letters etc and we got more than 2-3 of these.

Ah well, a teacher's note today in the report book in response to my comment on the wordless books makes clear that she will indeed still get these, despite the fact that she reads words now. I'm not too bothered though, as I have some great ideas from this thread to make them interesting (if I can't sign that we've 'done' a book it doesn't get changed - so we have to do something with it). Otherwise I would have been quite irritated.