About Oxford Reading Tree
The home of Biff, Chip and Kipper Stories, Songbirds, Traditional Tales, inFact and more.
“I love Biff, Chip and Kipper so much I named my pet stick insects after them.” – Rhys, age 6
As the UK’s most successful reading scheme, Oxford Reading Tree has helped millions of children from all over the world learn to read ... and love to read. Rooted in reading for pleasure and with synthetic phonics at its heart, Oxford Reading Tree's well-loved characters, breadth (over 800 books!) and varied writing styles give children everything they need to become confident readers.
At school, and at home
Schools across the world use Oxford Reading Tree books, including series such as Floppy's Phonics, Biff, Chip and Kipper, Traditional Tales, Songbirds Phonics, inFact, and Story Sparks. A separate range of books, each containing supporting notes for parents, have been created to support learning at home.
How are children taught to read at school?
Reading is one of the most important things your child will learn at school. In England, children are taught to read the words on the page using phonics. Phonics is an approach to reading that focuses on building words from sounds. A sound might be represented by a letter (such as ‘s’ or ‘m’) or a group of letters (like ‘ch’ or ‘igh’). Children start by learning the letters and the sounds they make, and how to put them together to read simple words. We have a useful audio guide to phonics on our Phonics made easy page.
How can I help my child learn to read at home?
You'll find lots of expert advice and helpful tips on our Reading at home pages, and on our blog. The most important thing you can do is make the time to read with your child every day, whether a book sent home from school, borrowed from the library or from your own bookshelves. The Read with Oxford 'My Phonics Kit' is a great resource to have at home, and the Read with Oxford range of early readers has been especially developed to support learning at home.What are book bands and Oxford Levels?
In the UK, book bands are used across different reading schemes to indicate the reading level of each book. You will see our Oxford Levels alongside the equivalent book band colours on the back of each Oxford Reading Tree book. Read our blog post to learn more about reading schemes and why they matter.
Age 4–5Reading at schoolSchool Year: Reception Band: Lilac | Level: 1 Band: Pink | Level: 1+ Band: Red | Level: 2 Band: Yellow | Level: 3 Reading at home Read with Oxford: Stage 2 eBook library: eBooks for 4–5 year olds |
Age 5–6Reading at schoolSchool Year: 1 Band: Blue | Level: 4 Band: Green | Level: 5 Band: Orange | Level: 6 Reading at home Read with Oxford: Stage 3 & Stage 4 eBook library: eBooks for 5–6 year olds |
Age 6–7Reading at schoolSchool Year: 2 Band: Turquoise | Level: 7 Band: Purple | Level: 8 Band: Gold | Level: 9 Band: White | Level: 10 Band: Lime | Level: 11 Reading at home Read with Oxford: Stage 4, Stage 5 & Stage 6 eBook library: eBooks for 6–7 year olds |
Download the full Oxford Levels chart >
Learning to read at home
Read with Oxford is a new range of carefully levelled books to help children learn to read, and love to read. The Read with Oxford Stages have been developed by our reading experts to help you choose which books to use at home to support your child - from their first steps in phonics all the way through to being independent readers.
You can buy our most popular titles on Amazon following the links below, or browse the full range.
Have fun with Biff, Chip and Kipper
Games
Pair pals and four in a row. Play games >
Colouring in
Get colouring with some of our favourite characters.