1. Early Reading at Flitwick Lower
Foundation Stage
2013

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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’

10. 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’)

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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.

17. 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.”

18. 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!

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. Early Reading at Flitwick Lower