1. Year 1 and 2 Reading
Workshop
21st September 2015

2. A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb
Beyond decoding…
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Philip Pullman
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.  ~Chinese Proverb
In order for the children to develop a love of reading, the reading curriculum needs to be rich and varied. Children need to be allowed to select books and read other books for pleasure. This has a great impact on their writing. However, we must give them the foundations first through a rich phonics curriculum leading to greater comprehension of the texts they are reading.

3. Aims of the workshop
To share with you the ways in which we teach phonics and reading in school
To share with you the resources available to you to support you at home
To help you become aware of the expectations for your child

4. Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5
Highlight that in Year 1 the focus is largely on decoding words in order to read them and understand what they have read, and that as they move into Year 2, the focus advances into inference and deduction.
Explain that we follow Letters and Sounds as way of enabling progression of phonological awareness. Children typically come into Year 1 secure at Phase 3 but if they do not then they are given targeted support in order to accelerated progress. By the end of Year 1, the expectation is that all Year 1 are secure at Phase 5.
Explain to the Year 1 parents that at in June all Year 1 children complete a Phonics Screening check and that this is reported to the Department of Education. Explain that they will be informed if their child has not achieved the expected standard in phonics and that the children will have the opportunity to be retested at the end of July.

5. Structure of a phonics session
To review the previous learning and reinforce spelling and blending of words using phonic knowledge
Revisit and Review
To teach the new learning – the grapheme/phoneme
Teach
To enable the children to practise their new learning – reading and writing
Practise
To apply what they have learned – to read or write a sentence
Apply
Explain that the children have a daily phonics session and the structure of it.

6. Revisit and Review
Share the espresso website and also the correct pronunciation of the graphemes.

7. Today, we are learning the grapheme…ai
Model the phonics session with the parents.

8. I got wet in the rain.

9. Alternative pronunciations
Phase 4
Adjacent consonants
Phase 5
Alternative pronunciations
and spellings
Explain what each phase means and the way in which it is taught.
Model the approach to sounding out and blending adjacent consonants and alternative pronunciations. Explain to the parents that the children must be the ones who sound out and blend rather than the parent sounding out as the children will only orally blend rather than reading the word themselves. The role of the adult is to facilitate the process by highlighting the diagraphs and split diagraphs and reminding the children of the alternative pronunciations.

10. Teaching a split diagraph
e - e
a - e
i - e
u - e
o - e

11. Homographs Wind the bobbin up! She will read it to her little brother.
The wind blew the leaves off the trees.
You have to bow when you meet the queen.
He read about the frightening monster.
Robin Hood used a bow and arrow.
Explain the importance of allowing the children to trial and error with alternative pronunciations – they need to recognise when something doesn’t make sense.

12. Tricky Words
Model the way to ensure the children recognise tricky words by identifying the tricky part.

13. Resources www.espresso.co.uk www.starfall.com www.sparklebox.co.uk
Jolly phonics

14. Show the impact of sounding out every word and how it can break the children’s understanding. Model the reading recovery model of reading to ensure the children comprehend their sentences. Read a word on sight then sound out one, after one has been sounded out, go back to the beginning and re-read to ensure meaning is maintained.
Highlight also the high frequency words and how these can help also.
Talk about other strategies that can be used. Never cover up the pictures as at this stage it helps the children.

15. Reading with awareness of punctuation.
Talk about initially getting the children to actually say the word full stop when they see one, then move to saying it in their head and eventually they will do it automatically.
Emphasise the ? And ! And the use of speech marks. How does your child read? Is it robotic? Do we model the use of punctuation?

16. Which AF? AF2 “Woof! Woof!” questions AF3 “Hmm…..” questions
AF4 “Sort it! Sort it!” questions
Which AF?
AF6 “Write, write, yippee, boo hoo!” questions
AF5 “Gabble, gabble!” questions
AF7 “To boldly go” questions
Share the fact that there are certain reading strategies and skills the children need to acquire and we use these to help the children make progress in their reading. Explain to the parents that in order to help the children understand the different Afs we have given them names and actions. Work with the children through the different actions and explain that the significance of both the actions and names will become clearer as they become more familiar with the

17. Assessment Focus 2: understand, describe, select or
retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use
quotation and reference to text
Asking the children questions about what they have read and asking them to prove it by finding the answer in the text. Getting them to retell the story in their own words. Making use of the contents page of a non-fiction book.

18. Assessment Focus 3: deduce, infer or interpret
information, events or ideas from texts
As children move into Year 2, we work on inference and deduction skills.
Deduce:
Infer: a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.
Highlight that we are not necessarily given the answers we have to guess at them based on what we read. Refer to the booklet with the parent.

19. Assessment Focus 4: identify and comment on the
structure and organisation of texts, including
grammatical and presentational features at text level
Explain that this is easier with non-fiction texts. Ask the parents to think about the non-fiction texts they read with their children. Discuss the layout the different features that you would expect to find. Using the non-fiction text of their choice ask the parents to use the booklet to consider the types of questions they could ask their child.

20. Assessment Focus 5: explain and comment on writers’ use
of language, including grammatical and literary features
at word and sentence level
Refer to the booklet once again. Emphasise that we can not presume that the children actually understand the words they read. We must always check to see if they understand the meaning of words.
Use of a piece of paper or whiteboard for jotting new words down.
In a non-fiction text this may be the use of technical language, a play on words but in fiction it needs to be really unpicked.

21. Assessment Focus 6: identify and comment on writers’
purposes and viewpoints, and the overall effect
of the text on the reader
Having an emotional response to the text. Look at the question booklet. Explain that this does not need to be a book read by the children themselves but one that is shared with an adult. Think about when you are reading a new novel. Are you constantly asking yourselves questions?

22. Assessment Focus 7: relate texts to their social,
cultural and historical traditions
Stories with morals
Learning about different cultures – Handa’s Surprise – What do we learn about the culture/setting? Highlight that again these skills can be developed whilst being read to the children rather than a book they read themselves.
Traditional tales and the features – good over evil, the number 3 etc

23. The ability to read the words on the page is only the tip of the iceberg.
Reiterate that the ability to read words is only the tip of the iceberg and that there are any other reading skills which need to equally be developed. Really emphasise the fact that some of these skills can be developed whilst a book is being read to the children rather than them reading it themselves. Highlight that we really consider all these AFs before we move the children on in their reading level.
Explain that in Years 1 and 2, the decoding is very important but these other reading skills can be developed also.

24. Year 2 SATS
Share how the children will be tested and also show some sample materials.