1. Reading How to help at home1

2. Most important thing – from a very early age… Talking and Listening.
Reading with and to your child
Playing listening games
Singing songs and rhymes
Simple movement games
All these things will help to build up connections in the brain, an enjoyment of language and confidence to try things out.

3. HOW DO WE TEACH READING? Three approaches: Shared reading
Guided reading
Independent reading
Purpose of reading is obviously to access the wider curriculum but also leads to independent enjoyment and opportunities to read for pleasure.

4. PHONICS
Correct pronunciation
Correct vocabulary
We all need to use the same language at home and at school.
Little and often is the key. It does not have to be formal.
Link it to your child’s interests.

5. PHONEME The smallest unit of sound in a word.
There are 44 phonemes that we teach.
These may be represented by one or more letter.
the-phonemes

6. Terminology
Phoneme = the sound you hear
Grapheme = the written
representation of a sound.
Staff will use this terminology with the children but we have also recently introduced “these letters are code for the sound...”

7. Terminology
Graphemes
May be a single letter e.g. t
Digraph e.g. ai
Trigraph e.g. igh
Split digraph e.g. a-e

8. BLENDING Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example
c-u-p
and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’

9. SEGMENTING ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out
The opposite of blending
Use your ‘ROBOT ARMS’

10. Segment and Blend these words…
drep
blom
gris
Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

11. Once children are secure with single phonemes…
DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound
ll ss zz oa ai
TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound
igh dge

12. Segmenting Activity
Use your ‘robot arms’ to say how many phonemes in each word.
shelf
dress
sprint
string

13. Did you get it right? shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes
dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes
sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes
string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

14. TRICKY WORDS
Words that are not phonically decodeable e.g. was, the, I

15. Some tips for when you are reading at home
Always be positive, it needs to be quality time…
Try to find a quiet place, no TV in the background, phone switched off ….
If the child is reluctant - begin by reading to them and gently suggest they take over / have a go
If they are stuck on a word, it will depend on the place in the sentence how you help. Sometimes you give them the word – sometimes you read on and come back to it; sometimes you re-run the sentence and look for meaning.
We work out unknown words in three ways – strategies are: phonics, context and semantics. By getting the children confident with all three approaches they begin to use them automatically as we do.

16. How can you help?
Encourage them to read to you at home – not just school reading book – signs, cereal packets, comics
Read to them – as above
Talk about what you are reading
Make reading time pleasurable – curl up in bed or sofa, turn TV off, make it a special time
Let them see you enjoy reading too
Encourage them to write if they want to by providing felt tips, glue pens etc
Praise every effort – don’t correct it unless they ask
Encourage them to try words – don’t give them sentences to copy