1. Letters and sounds

2.  Reading is a very complex skill and requires lots of practice.  Reading to your children from an early age is crucial  Children start by becoming familiar with books and how they work. When you read to them you should:  Point to the words.  Talk about what might happen next.  Look at the pictures.  Ask your child questions as the story develops.  These skills are just as important as decoding unfamiliar words and recognising new words.

3.  Decoding words is one of the main skills in reading and can be a very complex procedure.  There are other skills involved too.  Children will use the story book conventions they have learned with you and with us about how stories usually work. (predicting)  They will use the sense of a sentence. (language conventions)  As they progress they may read on and read back. (decode what they know and see what the word might be)  They may use picture clues too.  To see this in action, I am going to pass out a book for you all to read.

4. Predicting: Incy Wincy ____________? Humpty Dumpty sat on a ___________? Language and experience After school little Billy went to Mc________ for a burger. Read on and come back The tiger’s f_____ was black and orange.

5.  Think about all the skills you have just used. This is what it is like for your child.  Sounding out is the primary skill but not the only skill.  So if your child is using the pictures, or making up words this is normal, he or she is using as many clues as possible to work out the code.  But the primary skill they need is sounding out.

6.  There are 26 letters in the alphabet.  Combinations of these letters give us 44 sounds.  These very small units of sound are called phonemes.  The chart I have given you shows all the phonemes.  Most words can be decoded when you look for these sounds. This is a great help to your child.  Keep the card with when you read with your child and draw attention to each sound not just each letter.

7.  Try to use just the letters to decode these sentences.  May I play?  Can I see?  It just doesn’t work  Now lets try it using the sounds.

8.  May I play?  Can I see?  That’s not fair!  Shout out loud!  Blow the snow  Poo at the zoo!  You can see how important it is to draw attention to the sounds not just the letters.

9.  The English language does have rules but they are very complicated and not every word follows the rules.  These words we call red words or tricky words and they just have to be learned. (see list)  Try sticking them around the house.  Challenge your child to read them. Play a game, can you find ‘he’ for me, can you find ‘be’ for me.

10.  I can’t stress enough that practice is the key to reading.  The children who read every night at home make the best progress.  We read every day with the children, but children who read at home are getting double the practice. Thank you so much for your support.  This is not the end it’s…

11.  Happy Reading.