Year 1 Coffee Morning

Today we will talk about….. Transition from reception to year 1 Supporting your child’s reading Phonics Attendance and punctuality

Reading in Year 1 How do our children learn to read? In reception children will begin to read through phonics. Once children begin learning sounds, they are used quickly to read and spell words. Children can then see the purpose of learning sounds. For this reason, the first six letters that are taught are ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’, ‘p’, ‘i’, ‘n’. These can immediately be used to make a number of words such as ‘sat’, ‘pin’, ‘pat’, ‘tap’, ‘nap’

Blending for Reading To learn to read well children must be able to smoothly blend sounds together. Blending sounds fluidly helps to improve fluency when reading. Blending is more difficult to do with longer words so learning how to blend accurately from an early age is imperative.

Segmenting for Reading and Spelling Segmenting is a skill used in spelling. In order to spell the word cat, it is necessary to segment the word into its constituent sounds; c-a-t. Children often understand segmenting as ‘chopping’ a word. Before writing a word young children need time to think about it, say the word several times, ‘chop’ the word and then write it. Once children have written the same word several times they won’t need to use these four steps as frequently

Strategies for Reading Use Picture Clues; Look at the picture. Are there people, objects, or actions in the picture that might make sense in the sentence? Sound Out the Word; Start with the first letter, and say each letter-sound out loud. Blend the sounds together and try to say the word. Does the word make sense in the sentence? Look for Chunks in the Word; Look for familiar letter chunks. They may be sound/symbols, prefixes, suffixes, endings, whole words, or base words. Read each chunk by itself. Then blend the chunks together and sound out the word. Does that word make sense in the sentence? Connect to a Word You Know; Think of a word that looks like the unfamiliar word. Compare the familiar word to the unfamiliar word. Decide if the familiar word is a chunk or form of the unfamiliar word. Use the known word in the sentence to see if it makes sense. If so, the meanings of the two words are close enough for understanding.

Reread the Sentence; Read the sentence more than once. Think about what word might make sense in the sentence. Try the word and see if the sentence makes sense. Keep Reading; Read past the unfamiliar word and look for clues. If the word is repeated, compare the second sentence to the first. What word might make sense in both? Use Prior Knowledge; Think about what you know about the subject of the book, paragraph, or sentence. Do you know anything that might make sense in the sentence? Read the sentence with the word to see if it makes sense.

High Frequency Words High frequency (common) are words that recur frequently in much of the written material young children read and that they need when they write. There is a list of the first 300 words in each pack. Tricky Words Tricky words are words that cannot be ‘sounded-out’ but need to be learned by heart. They don’t fit into the usual spelling patterns. In order to read simple sentences, it is necessary for children to know some words that have unusual or untaught spellings. It should be noted that, when teaching these words, it is important to always start with sounds already known in the word, then focus on the 'tricky' part. ‘what’, ‘was’...both tricky because you can’t sound them out...you just have to remember them!

Phonics The alphabet contains only 26 letters. Spoken English uses about 42 sounds (phonemes). These phonemes are represented by letters (graphemes). In other words, a sound can be represented by a letter (e.g. ‘s’ or ‘h’) or a group of letters (e.g. ‘th’ or ‘ear’)

Year 1 Phonics Screening Test Test that all year 1 children do in the summer term. 40 words; 20 nonsense words to phonically decode. Pass rate is 32 out of 40. If children score below 32 then they will have the chance to retake the test in year 2.

How you can help Read daily with your child Talk with your child When reading: talk about the pictures what do you think the book is about? what did/didn’t you like?

Attendance and Punctuality School starts at five to nine, children must be on the yard at this time to be collected by class teacher. First lesson of the day is phonics. Attendance in year 1 is important

Other information Home work will be given each Friday to be in on a Monday. Children will do PE twice a week – full kit is needed. Snack is £1 per week.