Oxford Reading Tree and Reception

[ninani]

I was following a discussion on another section of mumsnet where I could not log in. So I am posting this here.

From what I have been reading, it seems that most or many schools teach reading from the Oxford Reading Tree (ORT). Or am I wrong? We were thinking of buying a set for our son -the first 5 levels at a bargain price- before he starts Reception since he has recently started reading. Do you think it's not worth it if they teach the same at school? Should we buy him something else instead? What other book choices are there? I really don't know what the schools teach here, maybe not the ORT. If you think it's ok, do you think we should buy him more than the first 5 levels from this series?

Also how do you know when a child has reached a level? When they can read fluently? Understand all the words?

Thank you in advance! You have all been very helpful here

backtotalkaboutthis

No we have always had very high reading standards in school but since removing ORT & Ginn standards have soared across all groups. Children are more confident and able to read a much wider range of books and are motivated by the interesting books.

I removed them because we have used Jolly Phonics for reading instruction for 12 years but then gave children books which required them to guess words.
I don't believe any children would benefit specifically from ORT as they don't offer anything we can't provide with the books we do have in school.

I can also recommend the Usborne Phonics books "Shark in the park", "Frog on a log" etc. DD1 had these prior to starting reception and loved them. Reading has clicked very quickly with her and she's now in reception on orange level books. I don't have much experience of ORT books as dd's school does Rigby rockets/stars, but she has had a few out of the library which she has enjoyed, especially the Magic Key ones. I'm not sure what level they were though.

I think the best bet is a good balance of different reading schemes and normal picture books. DD got great pleaseure from realising she could read "real" books too!

Mrz - was it you who did the great list of non-scheme books with book band colours? I'm trying to find it and failing...

The standard 'Biff and Chip' ORT stuff is just not good for early readers.
Schools (well, most of them) are using a phonics approach to reading - ORT does not. So, children are taking books home to practice reading.... in a different way to how they are being taught at school. Of course there are some tricky words that don't fit early phonics ('was' etc) but having structured phonically regular texts gives pupils lots of opportunities to practice their wordbuilding without too many of these unusual words - building confidence etc.
It's a bugbear of mine, can you tell?

I recently was having problems with my ds trying to encourage him to read more(in reception), he seemed to get confused as I was teaching him phonics but he was using ORT books at school. Anyway to cut a long story short ,I was advised by another mumsnetter to look at readingchest.co.uk,you can rent books from them,from lots of different schemes but they actually give really good advice to.I have joined , but you can go to the web site just to read their advice and look at lots of different books available phonic and non phonic.

They're not phonic but red nose readers (Allen Ahlberg) are the only ones my DS actually wanted to read and then Dr Seuss type books. He has ORT from school. We also had some Miskin phonics type ones (superphonics I think) he hasn't really taken to them. Now he is a reasonable beginner reader (ORT level 3) we just read his picture books together at bedtime one page each and he also gets 2 books twice a week from school.

So the ORT books do not use phonics! Strange!
We only thought about buying them because we learnt that they are very popular, even schools use them and we could get the whole set very cheap from thebookpeople. But as some of you mentioned what's the point of getting them if he is going to memorise them before he starts school? I have no clue though which books they will use at school.

I really don't know about other books schemes for early readers
He has always been very interested in books, even when he doesn't understand them, so I wanted to help him a bit. Is there some other thread which has book suggestions for early readers?

Well it depends on which sets you are considering. Floppy Phonics and Songbirds series are phonic-based. I don't even think there are any tricky words at all in Songbirds iirc. V. boring though!

have a look at reading chest if you really want to start. As lummpy said you can rent reading books their for a monthly subscrption. Also look at the letters and sounds program. You may find some useful ideas on helping your child learn to segment and blend.

My ds is in reception and we did kind of enjoy the Biff, Chip and Kipper books as they create a self contained world and there are nice running visual gags in them etc, and characters like Mrs May who is quite grumpy. He was motivated by the idea of being eventually able to read stage nine, and so proud when he could.
So I would say get a couple - the read at home ones are pretty good- I remember one where floppy goes camping being ok- but as a caveat I would also say that ds grew up around books and has always been read to at night and during the day- a wide range of picture books, poetry and nursery rhymes on a daily basis.
If a scheme like ORT was the only encounter he had had with books I can't see how it could have worked. Also if we had drilled him through each level rather than taking cues from him and reading various levels at the same time that would have almost certainly not worked well.
The school have a great approach IMO, the kids are expected to take home one banded book each day and one other- the banded books contain ORT but are not exclusively ORT. As soon as ds seemed able to read freely (ish) the teacher noticed and told us to ditch the banded books and just read normal books- again, the right call. So now we are on Horrid Henry, Roald Dahl etc and still lots of great picture books. This morning he read 'Oh The Places You'll Go' by Dr Suess to dd and made me all teary!!
I think a bit of ORT, a lot of other books, songs and poems, and all is good!

ORT is definitely more fun after the magic key has been found!
And thinking back, I think it mainly worked for ds because he liked the challenge of working up a set of levels- each small step was very real for him. I am not sure of a levelled approach personally, as it's the sort of thing I would find offputting, personally and I also don't think chldrens' reading necessarily develops in that way- but other people like soemthing concrete to work through and it definitely motivated ds

ninani, my website has a page about using and choosing decodable readers and also gives info. and links to a range of recommended decodable reading schemes:
www.dyslexics.org.uk/resources_and_further_11.htm

The world is full of exciting and fabulous books to read and explore.

Please spend your money on something other than ORT - your child will have access to these books for free, and you will be looking forward to seeing the back of them with in a couple of terms.

My dd has just clicked with reading, and tbh what we like best are dr seuss (lots of phonetic words, silly rhymes, funny stories etc) and lucy cousins' maisy and hooray for fish (failry simple language, largely phonetic, fab pics... bonus of being able to read to baby brother too!)

She has a mix of things from school-rigby stars and rockets, ginn , some other scheme I hate as the stories are disturbing and pics vile (a book about a ghost finding a new place to live was a low point) plus some ort ones, the oned with 1 or 2 words on a page.

She definitely prefers books from home (we have stupid amounts though to be fair)- she doesn't get upset if she needs help on some words, as it is all a learning process, and she is now making informed choices at the library which is nice (I hated having to say previously that books were too simple for her etc, now she chooses the right level herself)

Songbirds do have "tricky" words and have far better story content than Biff Chip et al. They are written by Julia Donaldson (of Gruffalo fame) and have come a long way since the days of very contrived phonics based reading schemes. Oh how I hated the Fat Pig and Jip the Cat...

I like the Red Nose readers for fun books to read together.

CaptainNancy you might want to look at Rag Tag Rhymes they are very Dr Seuss like
www.yellow-door.net/products/products__decode.html

Oooh I loved New Way with Deb, Jip, Sam etc! I don't feel the same way about Bob Bug and Top Cat...
We have just got in Songbirds stage 3 in our class and the children do seem to like them.

I think the Read Write Inc books are great. You can buy the black and white versions very cheaply on amazon. They do not require guess work (like ORT) and are phonics based.

I recall my reception aged son flinging his reading bag and stating "I hate the Fat Pig!" for a moment I thought he meant his teacher ...

mrz!

Thank you mrz.

My sister learnt using a series called FizzBuzz... now they were fantastic!

Well I got DS1 and 2 reading the first 5 or 6 levels of ORT before they started school.

The trouble was they couldn't read anything else!
I think ORT is highly predictable and allows children to rely too much on guesswork.

oldandgreynow I taught a boy a few years ago who's mum had coached him in Ginn 360 levels she borrowed from her own school. Like ORT the text becomes predictable and while he could read any Ginn book he struggled with much simpler books in school.

We have an eclectic mix of books throughout the bands, but these do include ORT. There is nothing so annoying than to have little Johnny say 'I've read that at home' when you're doing a guided reading session. I have two children in one group who have whole series of ORT at home. With all the beautiful children's books on the market, I think it incredibly sad that people persist in buying colour banded books for their children. It just says to me that they want to compete with their friends and their children to be seen skipping through the levels when they start school.

Go to a library, share the reading, point out the common words, the phonemes and build words together; talk about the pictures; but please, please don't buy reading scheme books. We want your children to love reading, not to be competitive about levels, or (heaven forbid!) to be bored.

Well said RollaCoasta!