Phonics & Reading
Reading Overview
Learning to read is one of the most important things your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible. We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read them.
Phonics
We start by teaching phonics to the children from the very beginning of Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters.
The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.
The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.
The teachers read to the children, too, so the children get to know all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. They learn many more words this way and it also helps their writing.
All the staff have been trained to teach reading in the way we do it in this school. We believe that it is very important that all the teachers and teaching assistants work in the same way.
These video links explain how Read, Write Inc. works:
What is Read Write Inc phonics?Understanding phonics
Home Reading Reception and Key Stage 1
Your child will bring different sorts of books home from school. It helps if you know whether this is a book that your child can read on their own or whether this is a book that you should read to them. The teacher will have explained which is which. Look out for the bookmark placed in the book that will indicate the type of book it is. Please trust your child’s teacher to choose the book(s) that will help your child the most.
Help your child to sound out the letters in words and then to ‘push’ the sounds together to make a whole word. Try not to refer to the letters by their names.
Help your child to focus on the sounds. You can hear how to say the sounds correctly at this link:
Listening to you child read
Sometimes your child might bring home a picture book that they know well. Please don’t think, ‘This is too easy.’ Instead, encourage your child to tell you the story out loud; ask them questions about things that happen or what they think about some of the characters in the story. They will have already read this book at school and are bringing it home to practise reading it with fluency and expression. Give them lots of encouragement and celebrate their efforts.
Home Reading Year 2 to Year 6
When children can read fluently and are assessed as ready to exit the Read, Write Inc. phonics programme, they will then choose a reading book which is carefully matched to their reading age and stage. They will also have access to a wide range of books in our libraries.
Reading to your child
We know parents and carers are very busy people. But if you can find time to read to your child as much as possible as well as hearing them read, it helps him or her to learn about books and stories. They also learn new words and what they mean.
Show that you are interested in reading yourself and talk about reading as a family.
Why read to your child?10 things to think about when you read to your child
Missing lessons
It matters a lot if your child misses school. The way we teach children to read is very well organised, so even one missed lesson means that your child has not learnt something that they need to know to be a good reader.
Finding reading difficult
We want children to learn to read, however long it takes us to teach them. We will find out very quickly if your child is finding reading difficult. First, we move children to a different group, so that we can make sure that they have learnt what they need to know.
If they still struggle, we give them extra time with an adult, on their own. These adults are specially trained to support these children. Your child will still be in the same group with the other children and won’t miss out on any of the class lessons.
If we have any concerns about your child’s reading, we will talk to you about this.
Some children take a bit longer to learn to put sounds together to read a word, e.g. c-a-t to make the word ‘cat’. At our class reading meetings, we will explain how you can help your child to do this.
Problems pronouncing sounds
This isn’t a problem for learning to read as long as we know what sound the child is trying to say. This is not something to worry about. Many children have a few sounds that they can hear clearly but find it difficult to say, particularly the l-sound, r-sound, w-sound, thsound, s-sound, sh-sound and j-sound. Often they say a t-sound for the c-sound; "tttssh" for the s-sound; "w" for the r-sound and "r" for the l-sound. You can help your child by encouraging him or her to look at your mouth when you say the sound.
Whatever you do, do not make your child feel a failure. They can easily learn to read, even if they find one or two sounds difficult to say.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns. We are here to help.