ORT: Read at Home books, a guide to the levels

The Read at Home series of books from the Oxford Reading Tree have been designed to help parents support their children in learning to read. There are five levels and each level is graded either a,b or c to allow for a gradual progression as their confidence and ability grows.

To help you decide the correct level books to get for your child I have included these guidance notes.

Level 1: Getting Ready to Read

for Children who:

• can recognise their own name


• can match some words


• can recognise some letter sounds

Level 2: Starting to Read

For Children who:

• can recognise a few words by sight


• can use pictures to read simple sentences


• know some initial letter sounds

Level 3: Becoming a Reader

For children who:

• can recognise 10-20 words by sight


• can read simple sentences


• know all the initial letter sounds

Level 4: Building Confidence in Reading

For Children who:

• can recognise 30-50 words by site


• can read harder sentences, with less support


• can use letter sounds to help make words

Level 5: Reading with Confidence

For Children who:

• can recognise 75+ word by sight


• can read ahead to check meaning


• can read silently to themselves

Oxford Reading Tree Sets

Oxford Reading Tree books have been used for generations to help kids on their first steps to becoming independent readers. The books are split into 17 stages taking kids all the way through their primary school eduction. The books are grouped into themed sets, typically of six stories. The books can be brought individually although they are often sold as sets. for whole class teaching you can buy packs of six sets (i.e. 36 books)

Have a look at the current range of books

Finding Books At Amazon

I like Amazon it's normally my first choice for books, music and dvds. Sometimes however it's not too easy to find what you want. Recently I was trying to buy a set of books from the Oxford Reading Tree, Reading at Home range. This I found very confusing and when I tried to find books from the level 3 range I almost gave up!

So I have decided to create an Amazon Store that just deals in reading schemes. When you shop at an Amazon store you are still shopping at Amazon but the shop normally specializes in one kind of product. I've started with the Oxford Reading Tree, Reading at Home books and I will add other schemes over the coming weeks.