ORT read at home versus normal ORT levels

[harveytherabbit]

The Read at Home books series see m harder to me for the band they're in. Is there anywhere that compares them to the normal ORT books?

Does anyone have a view of what Read at Home 4a would correspond to in the other ORT books as I'm sure they're different.

I think youre right, Harvey, in deciding that the read at home books are harder than the standard ORT books, and TBH I dont quite see why they have been created without any kind of guide on the back EG read at home 4a = ORT equivalent stage ?7? certainly a straight comparison of ORT stage 4 and read at home level 4 shows a big difference. My Dd2 was reading the read at home level 4 books at about Christmas time in reception, but the ORT stage 7's at school at the same time. Sorry cant give you any kind of straightforward comparison chart but I bet there are those on here who can.

oh crikey don't tell me that! Ive just ordered a load from the bookpeople and they've got band 5 on them which I assumed was the same as ort level 5.

DS is in reception and we're having an almighty battle with the school to give him reading books which are both hard enough and that he wants to read. He is reading ort level 4 & 5 with no problem at home but at school he is on level 2 which in his school are blue stickered books just to confuse things even more. I have asked and asked for him to have harder ones but because he is in the "top" reading group already they won't give him anymore so I thought Id buy a load of these and see what happens...but think they are going to be too hard now! I know they'll keep but thats really annoying!

Just to confuse you even more, the blue banded ORT books range from Stage 2 (e.g The Dream) to Stage 4(e.g The Secret Room)! I would expect Read at Home Books to be a little harder because, to my mind, these are sharing books to read together rather than individual reading books. So Stage 5 should be fine!

Ahh thank you-I didn't realise that. The ones our school have are very very old and they have got no colour bands on them anywhere so they've all been stickered whereas the new ones that Ive got at home have got the little coloured bands on the back.

It was actually The Dream that he had last week (they have loads of other reading schemes not just ort so we sometimes get 2 ort in a row and then none for about a month!)and it was that which confused me about the levels so thank you for clearing that up! And we've just read "The Secret Room" at home tonight cause Ive got it at home (Good old e-bay lol!) and although its much longer the actual words aren't any harder.

If anyone is interested The Book People have got the Read at Home First Experiences collection for £8.99 which is level 4 I think so have just ordered that as well. Have found the books on Amazon and can have a look at the text inside them which is good to guage what level they are.

Yes that seems to be the idea based on the ORT Read at Home literature - they are really designed for reading with your child more.

That said I have them for the same reason as Iheartttc - to supplement school books as they don't get changed as often as my keen ds would like. So it'd be useful to calibrate them.

Iheartttc - it's another thread really but that must be very annoying. I think ds' guided reading group do about level 2 ort because they are not split into ability based groups but he is at least given vaguely appropriate individual books for home.

Ihearttc - Your son sounds at exactly the same level as my dd and I'm having the same battle with school. She reads blue band books from school and they are simple for her. I ordered the pack of level 5 read at home ORT from the bookpeople and she loves them. She reads one to us every night before having a different story read to her. They don't seem too hard, but not too easy either, and they are longer. Sometimes if she's tired we read alternate pages. I think you should find that they are just right for what you need.

In answer to the OP - don't panic, if they're not quite right for now then I'm sure they soon will be!

They are fine for ds and he enjoys them - I am just trying to calibrate where they are compared to normal ORT for assorted reasons.

They're quite good stories by the way so I hope your dd likes them too.

This also confuses me - would be interesting to see a page of say a level 6 or 7 from school ORT. DD is on The Play, level 4 ORT and she read last night with ease. I also have the read at home, got stage 4 and they are much trickier, and longer, DD reads these ok though, maybe 95% correctly first attempt. Now stage 5 ORT i have seen a few magic keys books and i thought the words look totally manageable for DD, got 3 read at home level 5 and its really tricky, i haven't even got her to try and read it, have out them away for later.
For example of a couple of sentences, "Aran went into the statue room. He stood in the deepest shadows."
So different to "they opened the box, it had a key inside"

Jennypen-Im hopeless with links but if you go onto the Oxford Reading Tree website they have all the ORT books listed and you can go down and look at the texts for some of the books in all the different levels and totally agree that looks very hard!

Thank you Harvey-yes its very annoying especially as he is now starting to lose his enthusiasm for reading which he had at the start of the year. It seems like the books are so easy he can't be bothered hence me trying to get him interested again. His lovely lovely teacher has been off sick since Jan so they've got a supply teacher who is very nice but a bit vague. Im tempted to just send one of the harder ones in his book bag and see if they let him read it...but don't think that'd go down too well lol! Don't get me wrong he's not reading Harry Potter or anything like that but can certainly read more than he is getting.

I just called the ORT careline and these books are not National Curriculum banded. She said they use the same ORT colours as their other books e.g. level 4 is red but not sure that means anything.

Anyway to me they seem at least a level up if not two.

Iheart - if he is losing enthusiasm I think you have to take action and speak to the teacher again and if you've still no luck speak to the head teacher.

They are definately one level up, stage 4 read at home has the magic key in them and talks of castles and adventures which is stage5/6 core stories equivalent i would say.

I would guess that the reason is because you'd want your child to be reading slightly harder books at home compared to their school reading where 95% fluency is the aim.

My DD read the stage 4 one when she was in stage 3 at school and the stage 5 ones when on stage 4 and sounded out the harder words.

At our school, the level 4 Read at Home books are in the orange band (using the red, yellow, blue, green, orange, turquoise ..... system).

My mother, a well respected teacher for 30 years and now well respected education welfare officer, told me very early on not to push DS's reading. She said that the most important thing before they are free reading is that they feel confident. So these "easy" books people are discussing are in her opinion, exactly the books they should be reading a lot of to get them confident.

The problem with getting them to read "stretching" books is that they may lose their confidence. I am sure it depends on the child, however in my mum's experience, it can be a particular issue for boys.

taffetacat-I completely agree with your mum to a certain extent in that the child obviously needs to feel confident when they are reading but they do need to want to read the book in the first place which is the problem Im having with DS at the moment. The books he is getting are really really easy...we are talking "Chip got wet" "Mum got cross" sort of thing whereas the ones he is reading at home have got a little bit more content to them and 2 or 3 sentences on a page rather than 3 words.

Thats about the right level for him. He is happy and confident reading them and actually wants to whereas the school books he just doesn't want to at all.

Thank you dozydrawers-on that basis I think they probably will be too hard for him at the moment but at least Ive got them when he can read them.

Taffetacat - of course but this depends on the child. My DD was getting books she knew every word in and was finding it very boring - it was putting her off, and was refusing to do her reading homework. We started reading reading harder books together, if there was a hard word she tried once and then i said it - and she was interested in reading again - and she seemed to remember all the hard words just on hearing them once! She went from ORT2 in September to ORT9 now.

I think it is very short-sighted of a school to rely on one reading scheme, and lets face it the ORT books dont exactly inspire you; my DDs school do have them but a vast array of other books aswell within the national book band level (pink, red, yellow, blue etc) I wanted to get some reading books from the library when DD1 was in reception and I clearly remember her teacher advising me not to select only ORT books as the children very quickly get used to the language patterns and style of writing. DD2 now in yr1 (and on white/lime banded books) comes home with a huge variety of books which interest her, and she can easily access any book that you throw at her. ORT have their place certainly but Im glad my childrens school use many other schemes aswell.

Agree with lovecheese - ds has really come on since he's been mixing schemes more at school. ORT have too many level inappropriate non decodable words imho. Fine occasionally but I like the mix.

Ds just read the 4a read at home Arctic Adventure and I'm thinking it was maybe more like level 5 or 6 equivalent? There were maybe 10 words out of maybe 200 that he needed help with so not easy but he likes the stories in this series.

Have just found something that gives the Read at Home 4a book we read this eve a reading recovery level of 14 which is the same as 'normal' ORT level 5 typically. So everyone's hunch that they are 1 level different seems to be backed up there!

dd came home from Book Day with a couple of ORT read at home level 5c books (they took money in to buy a book that day). She is on Gold level at school...not sure what that translates into in ORT, as our school uses a variety of reading schemes, but maybe 9??

The 5c ones are very easy for her, bar one or two unknown words, I'd say maybe Orange level...so yes, one level up. Though the books do say a=easiest, b=medium, c=hardest within each level.

Just looked in the Read at Home Handbook. The Read at Home levels are described as equivalent to ORT school readers as follows:

Level 1 (Getting Ready) = Stage 1-1+
Level 2 (Starting to Read) = Stage 2-3
Level 3 (Becoming a Reader) = Stage 3-4
Level 4 (Building Confidence) = Stage 4-5
Level 5 (Reading with Confidence) = Stage 5-7

Final stage is stage 5-7 - i.e. not a typo!

So yes guess everyones assumptions are correct they are a stage up and more challenging

My 5yo has just finished stage 5 ORt and is nnow bringing home stage 5 read at home, they
are longer but she doesn't seem to find them more difficult

Hi, does anyone know how many levels there are in Turquoise ORT? My son is on level 7 but we seem to be rehashing the same books from level 4 to 7. Thank you.

DD2 is on level 3 ORT at school and i have gone through the read at home books levels 1,2 and now on level 3.

i don't see much difference? longer and maybe a little bit harder but not massively.... also DD2 likes to read easier books at home which i am happy to do to build her confidence and sight vocabulary nb red words.

I also mentioned to the teacher that some of the ORT books our son brings home have "stage 2" or 3 written on them but the people at school have put blue stickers on them! AND that they are much easier than the Rigby/Fat Cat etc. with only 1 sentence on each page. She said that the literacy coordinator did this so it must be right. At home he has been reading the Read at Home books from 1 to 5 so many times and they seem quite easy. I guess they know better. I think at school they do lot of reading and that counts more (and possibly 1 level higher)