Different reading schemes same level?

[kolacubes]

At my dc school they use the ORT for reading. My youngest is very keen on reading, but doesn't have fantastic ability.

I am not concerned about ability, understand they'll get their in their own time. But whilst they were so keen I thought I'd sign up to reading chest and get them books of the level they are on, but different schemes to the ORT they come home with from school.

My question is has anybody else found that the different schemes although the same level seem to be 'harder' in their approach. For example - alphakids I found had a lot of words where they could be read with no problem whilst words that had not been come across. Where as ORT keep ALL words at a particular level.

What reading scheme would your preference be for?

I don't think ORT do keep all words at the same level - well the general ones don't - maybe your dc has the Floppy's phonics ones?
The general ORT storybooks throw in some quite difficult words now and then.
The schemes do vary quite a lot even if they are at the same NC level ime but I do think that's quite a good thing as then dcs get varied word patterns and more or less of a challenge at different times which can be good for their confidence.

we may well do i am not entirely sure, they are the chip biff floppy ones.

With unusual difficult words - i.e. not every day use, so not going to be read in a lot of books, and not easily sounded out, I just tell my child the words. Is this the correct way to do it? Rather than let them struggle trying to make the word.

Well my DD has done possibly all the level 2 schemes going (long story) and we found that ORT was probably the most challenging. In the ORT level 2 we found words like "concrete" etc so as someone said, they do throw in the odd unusual word.

Ginn on the other hand was very repetitive, at level 2 at least, along the lines of "look I can ran". "I ran fast" etc

Hope this helps!

Originally each publisher had their own system of levelling books which means you can't match Ginn level 2 with ORT level 2 or Rigby level 2 or ... which is why the coloured book banding system was devised.

what about something that reminds you what words they're intorudcing so that you can do a spelling check, or learning check?

like the ladybird Key Words reading scheme.

or you could do the Usborne Very first reading scheme, which is brand new: you get new words every book, but the parent/carer reads too, the large-print words are the ones the child reads and you read the rest of the story.
it means they can tackle harder (ie more interesting) books without having to have the skill to read them themselves.

Thank you for those suggestions.

I'm going to take a look at the Usborne scheme.

kolacubes how old is your child?

The books in the Usbourne reading programme start at a level that would require help from an adult for young children

This sets out the reading schemes and their colour coding so that you can match the levels between the schemes.

MRZ - age 5 on stage 3/4 ORT.

Thanks Seoana

The Usbourne books are nice to share with a child but not particularly good to encourage a 5 year old to read independently.

Ah thanks for that mrz, we have non reading scheme books that we share read, but its the reading by themselves they really want to do. I am actually using books lower than 4 red and yellow bands just so that i'm not having to 'intercept' as they are after the achievement of reading for themselves.