An Introduction to Reading and Writing at Our School “There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”

The EYFS 2014 The area of “Communication, Language and Literacy” is split into two separate parts: “Communication and Language” is a prime area of learning essential to development of all other areas “Literacy” is a specific area of learning teaching skills to begin to read and write Therefore lots of opportunities are provided to develop your child’s confidence in expressing themselves and speaking and listening before introducing phonics

Classroom Activities Developing Listening Skills e.g. Who is it? Copy the rhythm What’s in the bag? Pre-reading Skills Syllable clapping Rhyming Alliteration Matching games

Introducing Read Write Inc. A rapid learn to read programme so children can read to learn. Five key principles underpin the teaching in all Read Write Inc. Programmes: Participation - our teaching strategies ensure that all children participate fully in the whole lesson – there is no chance for children to lose concentration and miss key elements of the teaching Praise – children work together, as partners, taking turns to teach and praise one another and they are motivated by the focused praise they receive from their teachers and teaching assistants Pace - a lively pace keeps all the children fully engaged Purpose - we know the purpose of every activity and how it leads into the next Passion - it is easy for us to be passionate about teaching reading because the children make such rapid progress

Teaching Phonics Children are taught the main 44 sounds of the English language and matching letters. They are taught to blend sounds to read words. Sounds can be seen on the frieze around the classroom Sounds are not taught in alphabetical order so they can begin to build 3 letter words There is no ‘uh’ sound at the end. You need to say the pure sound e.g. ‘sss’ not ‘suh’ and ‘mmm’ not ‘muh’ https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/teaching-support/pages/rwi/?region=uk

Speed Sounds Further Group work Groups e.g. m Say m - Teacher says the m sound, children repeat to each other. Teacher holds up the picture card and says the word but stretching out the initial sound e.g. mmmmmouse Read m - Teacher draws the picture of Maisie Mountain and the letter ‘m’ next to it, running finger over the sound as it is traced Write m - Children write the ‘m’ sound in the air, saying sound as they write it Fred Talk - teacher puts Fred the Frog on their shoulder and says words in sound talk e.g. m-a-n. Children repeat Fred Talk and then say the word Further Group work Writing the sound Using magnetic letters to make words Writing words

Fred Talk Fred helps children learn to read Fred can only talk in sounds... (Fred can only say c_a_t, he can’t say cat) We call this Fred Talk If children understand Fred they can blend orally. Blending is needed for reading. Fred helps children learn to spell too. We call this Fred Fingers. You can have fun with Fred Talk at home! “What a tidy r-oo-m!” “Where’s your c-oa-t?” “Time for b-e-d!”

Follow up Phonic Experiences Throughout the day the children continually bump into the sounds e.g. adults wearing their sound aprons Group Activities e.g. Buried treasure Sound pots Toy talk/Metal Mike Sound hop scotch Independent Activities Sorting objects Finding letters/objects in the sand Painting pictures or sounds Sound hunt Fine motor skill development – using tweezers, threading, building, scissors, dough etc.

Follow up at home Lots of praise Keep sessions short, fun and active Speed sound handwriting sheet. However for some children it is more appropriate for them to write it big e.g. on a misty window, outside with a wet paint brush Don’t use letter names or capital letters while they are learning the sounds

Phonics Groups All children will begin with Speed Sounds Set 1. However the more confident children who already recognise many sounds and are beginning to sound words out will be learning these at a faster pace as well as focusing more on formation and building words. Groupings will be reviewed regularly. They will be learning four sounds a week and will regularly revisit them.

Reading Any volunteers to read this out?

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Reading An important part of learning to read is building confidence. We therefore aim for the children to always be able to achieve what they are given to read at this early stage and are given specially written books. Once the children know the Speed Sounds Set 1 at speed and can blend, they apply their phonic knowledge to reading the Ditties. Ditties are an important bridge between reading single words and stories. The Ditties are read 3 times at school. They talk a lot about what they have read to show they understand. They listen to and discuss other ideas to deepen understanding. They will then bring them home to read with you which will give the children lots of confidence in their reading abilities. They can also bring a story book home for you to read to them.

What else can you do to help? By reading your child lots of lovely stories, poems and non-fiction texts, and asking lots of questions! Use these prompts to help you: What is that character thinking? What is happening? Do you notice any patterns? What do you think happens next?

Enriching language Talk to your child as much as possible and ‘feed’ them new and different words: “Let’s eat our lunch now.” “Let’s munch our lunch now.” “Let’s scoff our lunch now.” “Let’s devour our lunch now!” Encourage enriching conversations through description: “Look at that rain. It looks like little diamonds sparkling on the window pane!” Have fun with words and language: “I’m as hot as a spud in a cooking pot!” Praise your child for using new words or interesting phrases

Reading common words There are regular words which the children need to be taught. These are broken down into words which can be sounded out using their knowledge of speed sounds e.g. mum, can, big. We call these ‘green words’, which are initially are shown to the children on green cards The other words are more challenging for the children to work out and contain “grotty graphemes” e.g. I, me, to. We call these the ‘red words’ and initially these are shown to the children on red cards.

Writing We keep it fun with chalks, sand, dough, foam etc. The Graphics and Office Areas offer free access to notebooks, envelopes, hole punch, stapler etc. It is important to use lower case letters unless it is the initial sound in names What can you do? Give them meaningful purposes to write e.g. shopping lists, cards, letters, signs etc. Any mark making is valuable! Step 1 - mark making (including drawing) Step 2 – writing random letter shapes Step 3 - writing the initial sound Step 4 – writing the initial and final sound Step 5 – writing the main sounds (consonants and vowels)

You can purchase resources to use at home and visit the Read Write Inc You can purchase resources to use at home and visit the Read Write Inc. website http://www.ruthmiskintraining.com/read-write-inc-programmes/index.html HAPPY READING AND WRITING….. Any questions?