St Mary’s Primary School Reading At St Mary’s we believe that reading is the passport to all other areas of learning.

Reading should be fun! road signs shop fronts posters magazines Print is all around us. road signs shop fronts posters magazines

What we do at St. Mary’s- Picture only books Labels, displays, games, ICT Story CD’s, rhymes and songs Designated reading areas in classroom.

Features of a book title author

Phonics A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. m , a , t = mat sh , i , p = ship ch , ur , ch = church There are 44 phonemes in the English language.

Pear, pair Here, hear See, sea Children are also taught the different ways a sound can be represented. Pear, pair Here, hear See, sea Written phonemes are called graphemes.

Blending Using phonemes to build a word. sh o p – sho - shop

Segmenting Breaking a word into phonemes. church – ch / ur /ch

Tricky Words Some can be worked out. this , in , it Some need to be learnt by sight. some , what , the

Enjoy reading!!!

Ways you can support your children at home Sing an alphabet song together. Play ‘I spy’, using letter names as well as sounds. Continue to play with magnetic letters, using some of the two grapheme (letter) combinations: Praise your child for trying out words. Ask teachers for a list of the tricky words. Set a timer. Call out one word at a time and get your child to spell it on a magic board or a small whiteboard, against the timer – remember, they can use magnetic letters. Play ‘Pairs’, turning over two words at a time trying to find a matching pair. This is especially helpful with the tricky words: the the, to to, no no, go go, I