Another ORT question

[gorionine]

DS" was a very slow starter to read. He needed a lot of suport from his teacher and us at home (which he got from both sides). Now his reading has really picked up and even though he his not top of the class the difference is amazing.

He is now on stage 5, has already read 12 books from that stage an clearly flies through them. Came back last night with the stage 5 series c, 6 more stories of the same level which as far as I am concerned he has now masterd. My question is do teacher have to go through every single book of the series or are they allowed to miss the last few ones which would mean I am kidding myself and Ds2 is not as confident as I think with his reading?

I would say that it depends on the child and the level they are going to, I am in reception so don't ususally see past L4, but there is a huge jump between level 2 and 3 so we tend to do almost all the books with almost all the children, which helps to enssure that they are really confident before going onto the next level, but no they don't have to do all the books.

Many people including myself BTW are not big fans of ORT as it is not phonics based. It relies a lot on the child knowing lots of sight vocab.

What NC book bands do your better readers normally get to Sali and what would be 'typical' for the middling kids?

In my dd's reception class, the top group are on green band, the middle 2 groups on yellow/blue and the lower 2 on pink/red. There are children in the top group who can read beyond green level but as they do group guided reading, having the same book each, they seem to wait until the whole group is ready to move up before doing so. I don't think it does them any harm to ensure they have consolidated all the sounds and fully comprehend what they are reading, rather than simply rushing through the levels anyway.

He has no problem understanding what he reads but I think maybe he is not consistant enough in the effort he makes. If a story is "girly" or not exiting enough he just reads in a bored voice that almost puts me to sleep when we go trough the book together. I think that might influe on how confident his teacher thinks he is. I do not want him to go through staged faster than he should but I think he is actually a bit unchallenged by the stories (rather than the reading).

I think there are things like reading expressively and being able to anticipate what might happen in the story, which the teacher may also be looking for.

That 's the thing really, if he finds the story interesting he will do all that. But in stories that are "boooooring "(quoting him) he will just put no expression an look at my face rather than the book. I guess what he needs is not harder reading in terms of words but harder in terms of challenging stories, not a story you can guess what the last page will be after reading the first one because to him there is absolutely no point reading something you already know the end of. And honestly, after having read so mamy of the ORT ones I see his point.

It may be that the parent helpers change the books, but only the teacher is allowed to move them on a band. That's what happens at our school.

I would just let him "fly through them" and then read something more interesting from home.

I think that is a good advice, thanks Bramshott!

Keep him reading interesting books from home & library, do not rely on the school to stimulate his interest in reading - it doesn't work that way. Get him to the library and choosing the books he enjoys, the school levels mean very little in the long run.

The better readers in my reception class are on ORT ST4 none are on ST5 most are on ORT ST2/3

Thanks Sali.
Here's another question. When people say it's important to comprehend the book, to what level?

DD definitely understands the basics of the story etc but I've no idea what kind of depth this is meant to go to. Her teacher hasn't mentioned it as a problem so maybe I'm worrying about nothing but I know it's important.

So in an ORT book, I'd ask her "what happened in the story", on a particular page I'll say something like "how did Kipper feel do you think" and she is fine with that sort of thing although her answers tend to be short.

Does that sound okay?

ermnopecantthinkofanewnam... are you using the questions on the card that comes with the book or making your own ones up?

DS is in year1 but I just realised that on another reading thread a few days ago I said he was in reception doesn't time fly!!

Based on that information, what do I make of DS2 reading is 14th yellow stage one?

No card with our books - think they're too old.

Do you mean ORT 14 or yellow stage in NC book bands?

It says stage 5 series c (it says "more stage 5 stories") and the little thing in the corner is yellow

I think if you look at

www.oup.com/oxed/pdf/ORTReadingAges.pdf

...I think 5 is about average for y1.

sorry try this instead

www.oup.com/oxed/primary/oxfordreadingtree/chart_2010/

You know what, this has confused me a lot (not your fault though !) To many colours! Why is the book band a different colour to the "stage" colour, and more to the point what does book Band mean

The colour is a way of grouping books from all the different schemes. My dd has read ORT, Rigby Star, New way, Story world and they all have the same coloured band so are all the same level. So she is now on ORT level 6...the book band is orange so books from any other scheme should also be orange.
Bee

Because ORT stage colours preceded Book Band colors (which are, as daisy says, as way of grouping books from all the different schemes).

Later published schemes therefore conform to the colours, and ORT orange just happens to coincide with the Book Band colours - none of the other stages do.

ARRRRRRGH - colours!

Thanks, makes more sense now!