1. Miss Cousens Miss Bacon Mrs Johnson Miss Mathias
Welcome
Miss Cousens
Miss Bacon
Mrs Johnson
Miss Mathias

2. Is this meeting we will cover:
Reading at school
Reading and writing at home
Phonics

3. Reading at School Winston Wednesdays – 8.45-9.15 Library slot
Group reading
Story time
Colour banded books
On the school website, there is a video where Mrs Cooper models how we carry out group reading.

4. Reading and writing at home
We encourage parents to read with their children everyday. This includes reading with and to them.
Fill out the reading diary for every time you read with them.
The diary can also include children’s learning that they have done at home, such as writing and maths. We want this to be filled with work that the children can be proud of.
Make reading fun and enjoyable, such as reading children’s magazines and day-to-day routines.
Make writing fun at home such as paints, watering cans, chalks, torches, dabbers and writing in flour.

5. Phonics
Phonics helps children to read and write, it encourages children to recognise sounds in words in order to read, and to break words down into individual sounds to write, for example c a t.
Some sounds are made up of two letters, called diagraphs, for example ch.
Some sounds are made up of three letters, called trigraphs, for example igh.
Alternative graphemes are where the same sound can be made using different letters. For example: ‘a’, ‘ai’, ‘a-e’ and ‘ay’
Everyday we learn a new sound, with an action and song and we practise how to write the letter.

6. Pronunciation
We do not want a schwa. This can distort how the children hear the sounds.
On the St Margaret’s website there are videos of Mrs Wood giving a tutorial on how to pronounce each sound.
We want children to know both the letter sound and letter name – eg. ‘a’ and a.
If you would like to hear a demonstration, at the end of the meeting we will model each sound.

7. Beware of the ‘tricky words’
These words cannot be broken down into the individual sounds and have to be learnt by sight, for example the, was, have and said.
If you brake down a word and it does not sound how it should then it’s a tricky word.

8. High Frequency Words
We have provided a sheet of the first 100 high frequency words.
These are words that commonly appear when we are reading. For example: and, the, mum, dad, a, it, on.
We encourage children to learn these words by memory as it will make their reading experiences much easier!
Remember that some of the high frequency words are ‘tricky words’

9. Packs
A list of useful websites, books and nursery rhymes – we encourage children to recognise rhyme as it exposes them to the similarities of the sounds of words.
Sound Mat – On this mat is the different sounds the children will be learning. This is fantastic for writing as you can encourage them to find the words they need using the mat. For example, if Fred knows the word ‘dog’ starts with a ‘d’ he can use the mat to help him find the correct way to write it.
Sound Cards – this can be a quick activity to practise recognising and pronouncing the different sounds and also shows the actions that link to each one (children at the moment only know 10, but we will inform you of new sounds they are learning).

10. Just so you know… Every day check children's book bags.
Please bring any spare clothes back to school as soon as possible.
After Christmas, we want to encourage as much independence as possible so we ask parents to no longer come into the classroom in the mornings.
We need Nativity clothes as soon as possible.
PE kits can be bought in from now but have to be in by the first week of the new year.
If you any ‘All about me’ books and/or folders to bring in, please do so by Friday.

11. Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you for coming!
Please let us know if you have any questions.