Parent workshop 21st september 2016 Early Reading strategies

Aims of the session To understand the importance of hearing children read To show how we develop as effective readers To give you a bank of reading strategies and game ideas to take away and to use at home with your child

Why is reading important? Reading is vitally important in so many ways: Through reading, children have a chance to develop culturally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Reading enables children to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know Reading gives children and adults pleasure !

Early Years curriculum Age band Learning outcomes 22-36 months Has some favourite stories, rhymes, songs, poems or jingles. Repeats words or phrases from familiar stories. Fills in the missing word or phrase in a known rhyme, story or game, e.g. ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a …’

30-50 months Enjoys rhyming and rhythmic activities. Shows awareness of rhyme and alliteration. Recognises rhythm in spoken words. Listens to and joins in with stories and poems, one-to-one and also in small groups. Joins in with repeated refrains and anticipates key events and phrases in rhymes and stories. Beginning to be aware of the way stories are structured. Suggests how the story might end. Listens to stories with increasing attention and recall. Describes main story settings, events and principal characters. Shows interest in illustrations and print in books and print in the environment. Recognises familiar words and signs such as own name and advertising logos. Looks at books independently. Handles books carefully. Knows information can be relayed in the form of print. Holds books the correct way up and turns pages. Knows that print carries meaning and, in English, is read from left to right and top to bottom.

40-60 months Early Learning Goal Continues a rhyming string. Hears and says the initial sound in words. Can segment the sounds in simple words and blend them together and knows which letters represent some of them. Links sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet. Begins to read words and simple sentences. Uses vocabulary and forms of speech that are increasingly influenced by their experiences of books. Enjoys an increasing range of books. Knows that information can be retrieved from books and computers. Early Learning Goal Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

Exceeding Children can read phonically regular words of more than one syllable as well as many irregular but high frequency words. They use phonic, semantic and syntactic knowledge to understand unfamiliar vocabulary. They can describe the main events in the simple stories they have read.

The new national curriculum 2014 requirements Pupils are taught to: Apply phonic skills knowledge and skills as the route to decode words Read accurately by blending sounds in unfamiliar words Read high frequency words with speed Develop pleasure in reading, motivation to read by listening to a wide range of stories, poems and non-fiction Participate in discussion about what they read or what is read to them Explain clearly their understanding of what is read to them

How can we help our children develop as readers? There are many ways in which we can help our children develop as readers. The New national Curriculum 2014 splits reading into two dimensions: word reading comprehension For the purpose of today’s workshop, I will concentrate on strategies we use to help our children to become skilled at reading words. The teaching of phonics and using it to help decode unfamiliar words The speedy recognition of familiar, high frequency words

Why teach phonics? The teaching of phonics is important in the early teaching of reading to beginners when they start school Phonics helps children to understand that letters on a page represent the sounds they hear in spoken words.

Why do we hear children read? To find out what they can already do To intervene and help them take on new levels of control To help them understand what they are reading

How do we teach phonics? In St John the Divine we follow the government’s guidelines on teaching phonics. This is a publication called ‘Letters and Sounds’. (show book) This book is basically a progressive scheme that teaches phonics in systematic stages. Stage one is all about hearing and identifying sounds in the environment, such as identified noises as a drum or as a dog’s bark, listening to rhymes and poems etc. Much of this work is done from a very early age and in nursery. In reception we begin the more formal teaching of phonics. Stage 2 looks at the teaching of the individual letters of the alphabet and the sound (phoneme) that they make.

How do we teach phonics? These letters and their phonemes are taught in groups of letters e.g., s,a,t,p. This is so that after learning the sounds children can make and read a variety of words such as sat, pat, tap e.g. For children who are secure with these letters and their phonemes we extend to teaching 2 letters that together make one phoneme e.g. ch, sh, th, ck, ss, ff and so on. In this stage we aim to make children secure and confident with using these letters and sounds to read (blend) and spell (segment) words. For the purpose of today’s meeting I want to go over the basic letters of the alphabet with you to ensure that you are confident that you are giving your children the same sounds/phonemes for each letter as we are using at school.

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme s, a, t, p

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme i, n, m, d

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme g, o, c, k

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme ck, e, u, r

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme h, b, f,ff, l,ll

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme ss, j, v, w, x

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme y, z,zz, qu,

Recognising letters and their corresponding sound/phoneme ch, sh, th

blending and segmenting cvc words children need to be able to blend phonemes in order to read words. If a child is stuck on a word in their book such as ‘cap’ they are taught to say each phoneme (not letter name) from left to right at a good pace. If the sounds are said quickly then the word often becomes apparent Sound buttons game

blending and segmenting cvc words The flipside to blending is segmenting. This is what children and many adults do when they are trying to spell an unknown word. E.g., if a child wants to spell a simple word such as pin we teach them to break up the sounds they can hear within the word in order i.e., p-i-n. Fans (pcm 53)

High frequency words Alongside the teaching of phonics we teach children to learn what is referred to as ‘High Frequency Words’ or ‘Common Words’. Many words in the English language cannot be spelt correctly by segmenting the sounds and writing down the corresponding letters nor can they be sounded out. It is words such as the, saw, all, they, like and so on that children need to simply learn. Ideally by the end of Reception year children are expected to know how to read and spell the first 45 high frequency words (show list) Some children find this approach easier whilst others find the phonetic approach more suitable to their needs HOWEVER children need both strategies.

How do we teach high frequency words? In reception we ensure that high frequency words are always on display so that children can find them and use them when writing or reading. We also play a number of games to help children learn these words and use them in the context of their reading and writing. Simple flashcards of common words that make a sentence e.g., I /can/see/the/cat When reading a book I might make flashcards of common words that will come up – If they can read it quickly they keep it, if they can’t they turn it back over.

Reading at home with your child How might you begin reading with a new book? ‘Walk through the book together, Look at the cover. What might it be about? Read the title. Go through the pictures discussing what can be seen on each page or what is happening. Skills Point at every word as you read. Use pictures to help work out the words. ‘Get your mouth ready for the first sound (of a word you don’t know) and think about what would make sense. Comprehension Talk together about the pictures Relate the book to your child’s own experience e.g. if the book is about a favourite toy , then discuss what their favourite toy is.

Reading at home with your child Always : Enjoy the book together. Talk about the book together. Explain any words they can’t easily read. Sometimes: Read a section to your child to show what you want the reading to sound like. Ask your child whether they enjoyed it and what they liked about it. Share your opinions about the book too.

Book making To end this session I would like to share something that I did with my daughter when she started in Reception and that I feel really helped boost her knowledge of basic common words and also her confidence in reading.   I have always found that reading resources available to parents for supporting their children read in the early stages are in short supply and those that are available do not really meet the needs of a beginning reader. As a result I made my own books with my daughter at home (show examples)

Book making Using the high frequency word list as a guide ,I choose 1 word to begin with e.g ‘my’ and wrote it on every page. I then asked her to think of the word she wanted next e.g, my mum, my cat, my dog. When she had given me her choices we then went on the internet and downloaded images of these things She then stuck it on every page and I wrote the corresponding word next to my.   I then demonstrated how to read it pointing to each word. Within a few minutes she had read the book independently and was extremely proud of herself. After this I aimed to make one a week and increased the number of words slowly. I like the..../I can see the..../this is a.../ Look at my....

What can you do to help at home? Read your child a bedtime story every night and talk about the characters, story line, favourite parts, what might happen next etc Read with your child daily with a book that has been chosen to match their reading ability Play reading games linked to the high frequency words Display words to be learnt around your house Take your child to a local library ENJOY READING TOGETHER