KS1 literacy - please help!!

[MadHatter]

Well, the RWI handbook, sound cards and two sets of story books (sets 2 and 3) duly arrived on Friday and I honestly feel as though someone really has just handed me the full manual for getting my child to read - and the great thing is DS seems to feel the same. Now I have a framework, I am seeing that DS can sound out a lot more than I thought - much of the problem was my lack of knowledge about the approach school are using (perhaps they do have a plan after all, it would just be helpful if they could let us know what it is!).

DS has read 15 books to me over the past 4 days, mostly RWI but a couple of ORT Floppy books as well - if you'd told me last week that he would do this I never would have believed you! Have shelved the ridiculous tomes being sent home by school for "home reading" and we have found our wings! Thanks for all your helpful suggestions. You have all given me some great ideas and resources, all of which I will dip in and out of, but RWI gets my vote for its "start-to-finish" approach and the fact that it didn't break the bank on my amazon order.

[mystery]

Phew, great. Did you get my later message in the thread above suggesting that the phonics lesson plans may also be useful?

I whizzed through all the reading elements of the scheme very quickly as I felt that was the most important thing at the time - so I kind of left the handwriting and the spelling a bit on the wayside. With hindsight I might have done it differently, but when you are doing it after school it's tricky.

I've recently bought appro copy of the RwI spelling scheme from OUP - the whole thing cost me £30 and it looks so much more sensible and useful than the tosh which comes home from school.

Just not sure where the hours in the day will come from to do it. I'll certainly use it in my volunteering though.

[MadHatter]

Thanks Mystery, yes I did. Have looked them up but I'm rather mindful of the cost having just bought the other materials plus a pile of floppy and songbirds books which I'd already ordered the previous evening! We're making such great progress with the black and white books and sound cards I'm going to keep going as we are for a while but if we get stuck again and I find myself in need of some new inspiration I shall make them my first port of call.

[mystery]

I think that if you keep all the books in good condition you'll find there's a very good secondhand market for them.

I'm really pleased to hear that it's working right now, and not a battle by the sounds of it. Great! Keep us posted - I think I've suffered most things during the learn to read process with both my children.