Early Reading at Flitwick Lower Foundation Stage 2013

Principles and practises Early years education takes account of the needs of the whole child: Academic Physical Emotional Spiritual At FLS, we focus on developing a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school as a solid foundation for a child’s future education Speaker notes: Children will learn the fundamentals of education more effectively if there are plenty of opportunities to develop socially, emotionally and physically first in a creative, secure, enabling and harmonious environment. The foundation skills in literacy and numeracy are laid through an environment rich in hands on activity and play opportunities; where language and communication are enabled through a rich learning environment.

FLS OfSTED January 2013 Standards in English and mathematics are above average. Pupils are doing well in all key stages including the Early Years Foundation Stage. Children join the Reception class with skill levels similar to those expected for their age, although there is variation within this as an increasing proportion start school with language skills that are below typical expectations. They achieve well overall in the Early Years Foundation Stage, especially in reading and writing.

FLS OfSTED January 2013 Early reading skills, including letters and the sounds they make, are developed exceptionally well. Pupils have regular, well-planned opportunities to read in groups, to adults and silently to themselves. In the Early Years Foundation Stage, careful checking of children’s progress enables staff to offer a good range of activities for children to learn quickly. They develop the confidence to explore and find things out for themselves. Effective teaching of the sounds that letters make develops early reading and writing at a fast pace.

Learning to read at school Language rich environments Words everywhere Notices, labels and instructions Role play and drama opportunities Wealth of texts The Spoken Word Listening to stories being retold rather than read Using role play and drama with and without props to retell stories, poems etc. Modelling Daily story time Group reading sessions Daily phonics sessions

Daily phonics Teach early reading skills: Focussed listening including hearing and making sounds in a range of environments Hearing and saying rhyming words and initial sounds Blending sounds to read simple words Recognising key words Speaker notes: FLS follows Letters and Sounds (DfE)

Daily phonics Develop reading and spelling skills: Knowing letter names Recognising the sounds individual letters and groups of letters can make Segmenting sounds to spell Forming letters to write the letters for those sounds

Daily phonics Introduce new sounds and key words: Using a range of games and activities THRASS resources and other phonics games to motivate, reinforce and enhance skills learned

THRASS Shared vocabulary across the school so that children aren’t confused Multisensory approach Clear annunciation Using names of letter to talk about the sounds they can make Speaker notes: There are a range of phonics schemes, e.g. jolly phonics, read write inc; FLS uses THRASS: charts, songs, pictures, stories, interactive games ‘mmm’ instead of ‘muh’ etc. Letters of the alphabet, e.g. ‘s’ and ‘h’ (sss, hhhh) cannot make ‘ssshhhhh’, so we say ‘s’ ‘h’ digraph makes ‘ssshhh’

THRASS Identify blocks of letters that make sounds graphs (1 letter that makes 1 sounds, e.g. ‘b’ as in ‘bird’) digraphs (2 letters that make 1 sound, e.g. ‘sh’ as in ‘shark’) trigraphs (3 letters that make 1 sound, e.g. ‘dge’ as in ‘bridge’)

THRASS Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. f e tch Speaker notes: Bold words = key words introduced following the DfE letters and sounds Jack and Jill can be decoded early on. Jill and hill rhyme and the children can use their rhyming knowledge to decode the words Fetch and pail may be more difficult to decode We break down (segment) the word into sound blocks, sometimes using sound buttons We use the THRASS chart to identify which sound box the letters (graph or digraphs) are in p ai l

Reading at school Variety of reading times Whole class story times Shared reading / modelling reading skills Group reading activities Paired reading sessions Individual reading opportunities

Reading at school Group Reading In small groups to cater for individual needs Books from levelled reading schemes provide words children can decode and recognise Use simple language to specifically teach reading skills such as blending, decoding, sentence structure and understanding of the text

Reading Schemes Staff provide books at an appropriate level to introduce vocabulary according to the child’s phonic knowledge and key word recognition Use basic words that children can decode (sound out) as independent readers Speaker notes: FLS follow Cliff Moon Individualised Reading scheme, which involves a range of bought reading schemes, such as ORT, Rigby Star, Literacy World etc. banded together to match levels Children may struggle at first with early scheme books because they lose the flow as they need to sound out most of the words.

Reading Schemes Millions of children learned to read before any reading schemes were ever invented! There is far better literature with language rich text and illustrations to spark the imagination

Reading Schemes Schemes can de-motivate and limit young proficient readers Asking a child to only choose books from a particular level/colour is very restrictive The major disadvantage of simple books is the limited language Speaker notes: For expample, Roald Dahl books have some complicated vocabulary, but the child learns lots. For example, the word ‘Gloucester’ from Beatrix Potter is unlikely to feature in a scheme book because the child needs many decoding skills in order to read it. But a child reading ‘Dr Foster Went to Gloucester’ may recognise the word and increase their vocabulary.

Reading at home Parents are a child’s first teachers Nurture reading for enjoyment Reading for enjoyment will help reinforce skills learned at school.  Children need to read books they enjoy…there will still be words they can recognise or decode in a book of their choice Speaker notes: Real reading happens when one is curled up, lost in the intellectual content of a book. Most of us have had the feeling of not being able to put book down until we had consumed the last word on the last page and then felt a sadness and emptiness because the experience had come to an end. This feeling does not happen when a teacher says “Bring your book to me.  I want to hear you read.”

Reading at home By reading widely and not always at the most basic level children learn new facts and new vocabulary. Reading does not always have to be challenging… Newspapers, magazines, internet, instructions, the back of a cereal packet…Whatever they want to read! Speaker notes: The sooner a child can do this the sooner they gain these benefits of reading. …as an adult do you always want to read something that is increasingly challenging? Especially after a hard day at work!

Reading at home Home / School Reading records are a perfect opportunity for you to provide information to staff about your child’s love of reading Staff use these records to celebrate reading skills your child demonstrates at school

Key points Enjoy sharing a wide variety of books with your child Encouraging them to choose a reading book from the classroom book box every day Talk about why they chose it Encouraging them to choose a book or talking story from school / local library Read to them and with them Model reading in a variety of contexts Model decoding words by using your fingers to cover up other letters to find blocks of letters within words Speaker notes: The information inside home/school reading records has been updated with prompt questions etc. Children don’t have to be able to read the text to you. They can help by: - starting you off with initial sounds by looking at the first letter of a word; - finding key words we are learning at school which you can find on the Friday Learning At Home sheet

Key points Sing lots of nursery rhymes Have a THRASS chart at home to play games with Make up silly stories to develop vocabulary, imagination and story structure Use clear pronunciation when talking about sounds letters make Use the letter names from the alphabet

Early Reading at Flitwick Lower