Nursery Reading and Phonics Workshop

Reading in Nursery In nursery we Support children in learning how to handle books appropriately, holding them the right way, turn the pages in order and follow the text from Left to Right, top to bottom. Learn where to find the title and author as well as what these words mean. Find and talk about the pictures and learn that they are called illustrations. Share lots of different stories and information books, talking about what we can see in the pictures and what might be happening. Develop our familiarity with traditional tales and other repetitive stories in order to build children’s confidence in joining in with, re-telling and also predicting events in stories. Create our own stories using familiar characters and events. Create our own information texts such as instructions for how to bake jam tarts or to grow bean seeds into beanstalks...

Reading Books together: How you can help your child- Read a range of different types of books- stories, poems and non-fiction texts. Show your child which way around to hold the book and turn the pages. Talk about the pictures in the book- encourage your child to say what they think might be happening. Follow the writing with your finger as you read and encourage your child to do the same- this helps them to understand that we read from Left to Right and the Top to Bottom of the page. As your child begins to read more and develops their phonic knowledge they may also begin to recognise some of the letters in words. Talk with them about words that start with different letters and encourage them to find them. Read with your child when they are interested, encourage them to choose the books they want to look at. Above all we want reading to be enjoyable and children will develop their reading skills further if they are interested and engaged with the activity of reading.

Phonics in School Phonics forms a part of our daily nursery activities and continues throughout school. It begins with Phase 1 which is separated into 7 Aspects: Environmental sounds- developing Listening skills to hear and recognise a variety of sounds in the world around them. Instrumental sounds- Recognising the sound of different instruments, playing them in different ways (banging, tapping, scraping, shaking…) and at different volumes. Body percussion- Learning how to make and match different sounds, encouraging children to tune into sounds and re-create them. Rhythm and Rhyme- Learning rhymes and songs, following a rhythm or beat, listening for and finding rhyming words, finding the odd word out from a rhyming string and continuing a rhyming string. Alliteration- recognizing the sounds at the beginning of words and finding ones that are the same. Voice Sounds- Making sounds like different animals and objects e.g. sssssssssss for a snake or chchchch for a train, listening for long and short sounds in words and talking about the sounds that they hear in words. Oral Blending and Segmenting- Building sounds up to create words e.g. working out what word c-a-t makes or breaking the word dog into its individual sounds d-o-g.

Aspect 1: Environmental Sounds At home you can: Play a listening game (inside or outside); find out how many different sounds you can hear and name in 5 minutes e.g. People talking, cars outside, birds tweeting, the kettle boiling... Tap on different objects around the house to hear the different sounds that they make. Take it in turns to make the sounds of different animals so that the other can guess what they are.

Aspect 2: Instrumental Sounds At home you can: Listen to different music and talk about the instruments that you can hear in it. Talk about whether they are loud or quiet sounds you can hear. Give your child a simple rhythm to repeat by tapping on their knees or clapping their hands.

Aspect 3: Body Percussion At home you can: Sing songs and rhymes that use actions e.g. Heads, shoulders, knees and toes. Sing familiar songs quietly/ loudly, slowly/ quickly... Use your body to make different sounds- clapping hands, tapping feet, clicking fingers... Take turns to make a sound and to copy it.

Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme At home you can: Sing Nursery rhymes together- ask your child to listen carefully to the words that sound the same. Play the Silly Soup game- look for rhyming words that you can put into your silly soup e.g. A rat and a bat...

Aspect 5: Alliteration At home you can: Talk about peoples names- can you think of names that start with the same letter/ sound e.g. Sarah and Sam. Look for objects that start with the same sound e.g. Pig and plate. Listen to stories and rhymes and see if you can hear words that start with the same sound.

Aspect 6: Voice Sounds At home you can: Make the sounds of different animals and objects e.g. Buzz for a bee or tick tock for a clock. Talk like a robot e.g. Say where is the c-a-t? Tell a story using different voices for the different characters.

Aspect 7: Oral Blending and Segmenting At home you can: Sound out some words when you are talking e.g. Put on you c-oa-t and your h-a-t. Ask your child to repeat the sound words or even have a go themselves. Play i-spy by blending sounds together to work out what you can see. Count how many sounds in the words you sound talk e.g. P-i-g has 3 sounds.

Writing in Nursery In Nursery we : Explore mark making using lots of different materials- chalks, crayons, paints, ribbons, scarves, wands... We are following the Wriggle into Writing Programme which helps us to develop our muscles, building up gross motor control and, in turn fine motor control to help us to be able to draw and write. We also use dough disco to develop our fine motor control for writing as well as for using tools such as scissors. We make marks about lots of different things and talk about what we have written. We look out for writing in the world around us and talk about what it might say e.g. Labels on toys and games, instructions for playing a game, shop signs... (using pictures for support where appropriate) We look for familiar words such as our own names and talk about the letters that are in them. We develop our understanding of different types of writing such as stories, information books, letters, instructions, poems and rhymes, labels and lists.

Writing at home At home you can: Use chunky crayons, paintbrushes, dusters, scarves, ribbons, make wands... To move your arms in different ways (up and down, side to side, wiggling, arches, spirals and circles) Use different things to make marks with- chalk, paint, paper, flour Make and use playdough to use for your own dough disco. Use different tools to mould and shape your playdough. Encourage your child to make marks about things that interest them, look at writing in the world around you e.g. Shop signs, shopping lists, labels on toys, cooking instructions...