1. FOUNDATION STAGE 2 Reading and Phonics Meeting for Parents As a parent, your involvement in supporting your child’s learning will be a vital factor in determining their success in learning to read. November 2015

2. Aims of the meeting To share with you how we teach reading and phonics in Foundation Stage. To share with you ideas and tips to enable your child to be given the best start in reading. To give you a little opportunity to practise with your child some of the things we will talk about.

3. Phonics – an approach to teaching reading. The alphabet contains only 26 letters. Spoken English uses around 42 sounds (phonemes). These phonemes are represented by letters (graphemes). Sounds can be represented by a letter (e.g. ‘s’ or ‘h’) or a group of letters (e.g. ‘th’ or ‘ay’) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksblMiliA8

4. Letters and Sounds: The 6 phases of the letters and sounds programme. Phase 2 -4 (mainly Foundation Stage 2) Phase Two is when systematic phonic work begins. We teach daily phonics lessons. Children learn: Spoken words which are made up of different sounds (phonemes) How to represent each of the 42 sounds by a letter (grapheme) or a sequence of letters ( e.g. ay, ai, ey, ee) How to blend sounds together for reading and how to segment (split) words for spelling. Letter names (alphabet) How to read and spell some high frequency ‘tricky’ words containing sounds not yet learnt (e.g. they, my, her, you).

5. Reading and Phonics at St. Augustine’s...... We use Jolly Phonics to aid the teaching of phonics. (see pack) Each sound has an action and a song which helps the child to remember them more easily. JOLLY PHONICS CARD Teach a sound

6. Teaching to apply the knowledge of the sound. Children will eventually be able to recognise and “read the sound.” This will follow with the children “writing the sound.” Once children can read, blend and segment words they can begin to use their phonics knowledge to attempt to write a variety of words. Activity: ……. Write as many words with this sound in! th

7. ‘ Tricky’ /Common Exception Words Letters and Sounds also teaches - Look and say words – there are many of these! was, no, go, I The children just have to see these and know them swiftly. There are lots of different ways of learning them. e.g. word bingo, word snap, memory etc. There is a hand out in your packs of all the words.

8. Help at home: In your pack you will have : Jolly phonics sound, pictures and actions. Learning through play, activities and games to play. List of high frequency words and tricky words through the phases. Nursery Rhyme sheets A copy of our letter formation sheet. Recommended picture books for reception EYFS – Reading Curriculum Reading comprehension questions

9. Reading for Meaning Phonics ( decoding of words) – to teach reading of words as discussed, BUT this is useless if children do not have an understanding of what is being read ( language comprehension).

10. Strategies to Develop Comprehension Think about the text before starting to read – looking at the context ( pictures/words they can easily read in the title) ‘Walk through’ the book prior to reading - It’s okay for you to read it first! Talk about words in the book. - What words do children know? Discuss them. Where have they heard them before? Talk about the meaning of new words. Clarify words that they do not understand. Link to children’s own experiences – What do they know already? During reading, ask ‘what do you think’ and ‘why do you think’ type questions - Explaining “why” helps the child think through and back up their answers with reasoning. Summarize and discuss – encourage your child to summarize what happened? Main events? Favourite characters. Read the book more than once – each time they will gain something new from it!

11. Reading Scheme In school we mainly use the Oxford Reading Tree scheme. The books children will bring home will be appropriate for their current reading level. Books MUST be brought back on a Monday in order for books to be changed and brought in daily to be heard by an adult Whenever you read with your child it is vital you sign and make comments in their log book commenting on your child’ reading experience. It is okay to read the book a few times as each time your child as each time they will gain something different from it.

12. Reading with your child – vital to their progress! 5 or 10 minutes 4 times per week. A quiet, comfortable area with no distractions. It shouldn’t be a struggle – you can help your child with words. Encourage lots of different strategies for working out words. Play games on the days you don’t read.

13. AND FINALLY.... Time to work with your child on some of the things we have discussed.