Reading Reading and Phonics in the Foundation Stage

What Is Good Reading? Basic reading requires the reader to share the words that the author has chosen to use in the text. Good reading is understanding what the author and illustrator are trying to convey. Good reading is improved when the reader brings experiences to the text and gains understanding from the text. Excellent reading requires the reader to use a wide combination of skills including phonics, word recognition, grammatical understanding and comprehension.

Session 1: First Steps Building a good foundation for reading, enjoying stories, handling books, understanding that print holds meaning. Working out the words, ‘What does it say?’ –Phonics –Word recognition –Grammatical awareness

Session 2: Comprehension Responding to the text –Who? –What? –Where? Developing a deeper understanding –Why? –How? –What will happen next? –Empathise with characters.

How is reading taught in school? Guided reading (Reading in group) Shared reading (Working with the teacher as a whole class on a single ‘big book’) Teacher reading to the class Paired reading (Reading with another child) Some individual reading Phonics work (Letters and sounds and Jolly Phonics) Learning tricky words on sight (Included in the reading diary)

Reading with your child Reading with your child should be done on a daily basis and recorded in their reading diary. Reading with your child should involve a mixture of discussion and decoding the print, if print is used. Reading should be a pleasant time for the parent and child and should last up to twenty minutes. We ask you to read 4 times a week and to record this in your child’s diary. If there are 4 entries then your child will receive a raffle ticket and will be entered into our weekly reading raffle.

Picture Books and Pre-Reading Picture books are texts that rely heavily on the pictures for understanding of the text, if indeed text is present at all. Picture books give children the opportunity to succeed at handling and using books, they help your child to understand how stories are organised and are super starting points for discussion. Parents are encouraged to help their child to make up stories to fit the pictures and discuss what is happening on each page. Reading to your child is very important at this stage to allow them to understand that words tell stories too.

Learning through phonics Phonics is simply the study of the sounds that individual letters and groups of letters make Through the understanding of phonics children can sound out words Children will be given a limited number of books to read independently at this stage Our system relies heavily on the ‘Jolly Phonics’ approach (See Jolly Phonics leaflet) At this stage games are used to promote phonological awareness and daily letters and sounds teaching

cat stuck Using Phonics goat

Early Reading Early reading is the stage at which your child can link letters to sounds and blend these sounds to read the print in picture books. At this stage it is important that children practice blending sounds to build up and sound out words. Your child will begin to recognise some words on sight that they can not blend, these are called high frequency or tricky words Now that your child is confident in making the pictures into stories they can start to use pictures to make informed guesses about unknown words.

Tricky Words Many of the tricky words that your child will encounter when reading can be found listed as ‘high frequency words’ in your child’s reading diary. When your child is familiar with the sounds presented in Jolly Phonics they will be ready to learn these tricky words. Tricky words should be practiced daily once your child reaches this early reading stage.

Reading Scheme Your child will become involved in a guided reading group once we feel they are ready to access this, depending on their age and stage of development. In class we will be using our Guided Reading Set books, which include Dandelion Launchers. These will not be sent home as they are a focus in class, but we will send games home connected to the book, so that the letter sound can be focussed upon. You can keep these games at home and record how your child played the game in their reading diary. An additional book, which could be an Oxford Reading Tree book will be sent home with the children on a Friday.

Book Banding: A Better Approach Book banding is a nationally recognised approach to grouping books according to the reading skills that children require to read them. It incorporates books from many publishers, schemes and genres, including ‘real books’, allowing children to read a variety of different types of books at the same ability level. Sometimes these bands require books to be grouped differently to the way in which the publishers intended them to be. Therefore your child will be unlikely to read Oxford Reading Tree books in the order outlined at the back of the book, indeed they may read books that span stages but that require the same reading skills to read and understand.

Comprehension Once your child has started to read words it is easy to forget about sharing and discussing the stories, instead children begin focusing on words. Please continue to pay attention to discussing the story and questioning your child, these are essential and important reading skills.