This week’s message is about Reading – find out more about supporting your child learn to read so they can read to learn. The first part comes from Mrs Latham, Sphere Federation’s Early Reading Leader. The second part is from Miss Wilson, our other Reading Leader.
Early Reading and Phonics
We’ve made some improvements to our phonics and early reading approach over the last few months. We’re using the government validated phonics scheme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. We’ve always believed that phonics and reading is a priority. The changes we’ve made in school ensure that this continues to be the case.
Our phonics lessons happen every day – they’re now just a bit longer (half an hour). In these lessons, children are taught how a letter or letters (graphemes) match to sounds (phonemes).
Alongside phonics lessons, we’ve introduced Reading Practice sessions. These happen 3 or 4 times each week with children in Reception, Year 1 and some children in Year 2. These are small group sessions, led by an adult, where children read a book that is matched to the phonics phase for the children in that group. The time to do this has been made available by moving to allocating ebooks for children to share their phonics reading success at home. Year 1 or 2 children who are secure at Phase 5 will read a fluency text each day and take home a wider variety of books.
Children also take a sharing book home to develop a love of reading. These books are to enjoy together and read for pleasure. Enjoy stories, predict what might happen and use different voices for the characters. Information books (non-fiction) can also be so much fun to share – finding out facts and discussing new information. Above all – make it fun!
A recent workshop explained the changes and accompanying materials were emailed out.
Reading in Key Stage 2
If your child is in Key Stage 2, thank you for completing their Reading Record every week – it’s been great to see how children (and you!) have been engaging with their reading at home.
Have a discussion with them about the things we get up to in Book Club or what their library book choice is this week. Another great conversation to have is about different authors. Use this website and have a watch of some of the videos that are age-appropriate for your child. Keep an eye out for World Book Day we’ll let you know how we’re celebrating all things reading at school!
Remember that your child should be reading daily. This could be in a cosy, quiet spot by themselves, alongside an audio book or with an adult. When reading together, some simple questions can have a big impact on memory and understanding. Ask a variety of questions:
- ‘Where did the character go first?’
- ‘How do you think they’re feeling at this point?’
- ‘What does that particular word mean and what does it tell you about the character?’
We want children to progress from learning to read to be able to read to learn which includes understanding the world around them. Check this website out for more useful questions.