Meadow class Supporting your child’s

reading

• How we teach reading at school

• How you can support your child at home

Early experiences

� •Your child will already have an awareness of reading when they start at primary school:

� •Sharing stories

� •Songs and Nursery Rhymes

� •Environmental print

� •Seeing adults read: books, letters, e-mails, texts etc!

To become confident readers we want to develop:

� Phonemic awareness Phonemic awareness Phonemic awareness Phonemic awareness ---- ability to hear sounds in words and recognise that words are made up of the smallest parts of sound (phonemes) and using these individual sounds to create words.

� PhonicsPhonicsPhonicsPhonics – Understanding the relationships between written and printed letters and spoken sounds. Knowing the relationships between letters and sounds helps children to recognise familiar words accurately and automatically, and "decode" new words

� Reading fluencyReading fluencyReading fluencyReading fluency – being able to read rapidly and accurately to understand what is being read rather than just slowly decoding

� Vocabulary developmentVocabulary developmentVocabulary developmentVocabulary development – building and expanding knowledge and understanding of written and spoken words

� Reading comprehensionReading comprehensionReading comprehensionReading comprehension – understanding and communicating what has been read to become purposeful active readers

The basics

� In order to be able to read children first need to understand what sounds each letter and combination of letters in our alphabet make. Synthetic phonics is the explicit teaching of this knowledge. We teach children to break words down into smaller units of sound.

The phonetic alphabet

� Too help yoo understand wot fonnic decoding izlike I hav ritten a few lines using oanly reggulerInglish spelling patterns. Unforchunatly, Inglishspelling is not aulways compleetly fonnic and children eventually hav too lern mor than wunsound for menny letters and grafeems (or letter strings). But in the erly munths of lerning tu reed we try too teech them the skill of decoding by asking them too practice aulmoast compleetlyjust with werds that hav fonnic spellings, like ‘cat sat, mat, tap, pin, nip and, bend, lend, make, cake’ and teech them just the mane sound for all the mane English grafeems.

Phonics at a glance

Knowledge of the alphabet

&

Skills of segmenting and blending

c-a-t ch-i-p sh-ee-p c-u-p

Oral Oral Oral Oral Segmenting and Blending Segmenting and Blending Segmenting and Blending Segmenting and Blending

This is a process of saying (de-coding) the sounds in a word and then running them together to make a word e.g. c-a-t-is cat, r-ai-n is rain, f-i-sh is fish etc. It is a technique your child will need to learn and it improves with practice.

Some children take longer to do this than others. To start with, sound out the word to see if your child can hear it. The sounds must be said quickly to hear the word. It can also help to listen for rhyming patterns e.g. cat, rat, bat, hat etc. Once familiar with the sounds some children may like to sound out words and try writing them.

Tricky Tricky Tricky Tricky wordswordswordswords -In the early stages of reading there are some common words and sounds which are too complex to read or spell correctly by listening for the sounds in them e.g. ‘was’ ‘he’ etc. Therefore we encourage these words to be recognised and memorised by looking at them rather than decoding them. We say these words are cheeky because they try to ‘trick’ you hence the name ‘tricky words’! Playing matching or memory games can help these become more familiar.

Do you remember what it’s like to learn to read?

Can you work this word out?

ghoti

Hint: it’s a living thing!

Another clue: gh/o/ti (3 sounds)

ghoti

� The answer is 'fish'!

� gh/o/ti

� gh makes an f sound from 'cough' or 'tough'o makes an i sound from 'women'and ti is a sh sound from 'station'

How we teach reading in Meadow Class

� Every child in both Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 receives 20 minutes of phonics teaching every day. We follow ‘Letters and Sounds’, a synthetic based phonics teaching programme. Children start on Phase 1 in Foundation Stage and the majority have completed Phase 6 by the end of Year 2.

At school due to the nature of the Foundation stage curriculum, we do not always have timetabled reading sessions in the same way as Years 1-6 (Key Stage 1 and 2). However reading and reading skills are regularly taught and encouraged. These are done in a variety of ways such as;

� Daily story time Daily story time Daily story time Daily story time –––– where a love and enjoyment of reading stories is shared and modelled with the children, it is also an opportunity to discuss the meaning of new words, join in with repeated phrases etc.

� Daily phonics sessions Daily phonics sessions Daily phonics sessions Daily phonics sessions – children learn and practise recognising letter sounds and the skills of oral segmenting (sounding out) and blending

� Shared reading sessions Shared reading sessions Shared reading sessions Shared reading sessions – where an adult shares a big book with the class focussing on and modelling particular skills e.g. pointing to each word, using picture/phonic clues, using contextual clues, looking at the length of words, comprehension etc.

� Individual reading Individual reading Individual reading Individual reading – children share a book with a teacher, teaching assistant or parent helper and are encouraged to develop their individual reading skills and ability.

Guided reading (group readingGuided reading (group readingGuided reading (group readingGuided reading (group reading) – children develop the skill of sharing and discussing texts in a small group (sometimes each child has a copy of the same book) and they are encouraged to develop reading strategies independently with guidance from the teacher Reading/Phonic ActivitiesReading/Phonic ActivitiesReading/Phonic ActivitiesReading/Phonic Activities - children work with an adult to play a game e.g. building up a sentence from a familiar story, rhyming lotto, build a word game, sort objects into groups e.g. starting with same sound/rhymeBook based reading games Book based reading games Book based reading games Book based reading games – a game based on the repeated language of a familiar storyIndependent Activities Independent Activities Independent Activities Independent Activities – activities are available inside and outside such as the book corner, alphabet jigsaws, word building toys, phonics sheets, books/labels in the role-play area etc. for the children to choose on their own or with friends.

Reading schemes

� Alongside our phonics teaching we also use two main reading schemes: ‘The Oxford Reading Tree’ - a high quality reading scheme based on synthetic phonics

� Literacy Links/Sunshine Spirals/Rigby Star

� ‘Real’ books taken home each week alongside reading scheme books.

How you can support your child at home

Encourage Enjoyment

� Let your child see you reading

� Join the local library

� Follow their interests

� Read the book too so that you can talk about it

What reading material?

All and any!

� Books:

Fiction and Information

� Comics

� Magazines

� Websites

� Anything else which captures their interest and imagination!

Helping At Home

� Regular practice of phonics

� Reading together – sharing stories and listening to your child read

� Dedicated reading time

� Talking about what you are reading/ watching

� Trying a variety of books and authors

•Invite your child to read with you every day. •When reading a book where the print is large, point word by word as you read. This will help your child learn that reading goes from left to right and understand that the word said is the word seen. •Read your child's favorite book over and over. • If you encounter a word that cannot be

phonetically decoded you can still explain why e.g. in this word those 2/3 letters make an ‘ay’ or ‘igh’ sound (you could even use the terms digraph or trigraph!)

Tips for reading with your childTips for reading with your childTips for reading with your childTips for reading with your child

•Read many stories with rhyming words and repeated lines. Invite your child to join in on these parts. Point, word by word, as your child reads along with you.•Discuss new words. For example, "This big house is called a palace. Who do you think lives in a palace?" •Stop and ask about the pictures and about what is happening in the story. •Read from a variety of children's books, including fairy tales, song books, poems, and information books. •Remember if you’re getting frustrated –they probably are too!

Strategies to use at home

Hmmmm…. What can I write…� If your child enjoyed the book? What

did he/she comment on? Did he/she enjoy the pictures?

� If your child read with little support or needed a lot of support

� If your child is segmenting and blending words with independently or with support.

� If your child is beginning to recognise any words by sight, which ones?

� Are there certain graphemes/letter sounds that your child needs further support with?

� Did your child use any of the ‘handy reading strategies’?

� Did your child comment on letters in words?

� Did your child make links to other stories, poems, TV programmes,

� Has your child been interested in other books at home?

� If you write nothing else please write whether they have looked at the book or which page you have got to!

•Hear stories, read along and read alone. •Play with objects and characters on the screenthat teach the alphabet, simple words,rhyming words and other skills important to

to read. • Use the sound recorder; use it to record your child reading and play back therecording so that they can hear the sounds they make. •Write simple sentences and make up stories. •Add pictures and characters to stories.•Make and print alphabet/sound books. •Make slide shows of ‘a’ objects.

Using the Ipad and computer

Ipad apps

� Mr Thorne does phonics

� Hairy Letters

� Pirate phonics

� Ladybird Ready for Phonics

� Phonics play (app and website)

Happy reading!!