Early Reading at Flitwick Lower

1. Early Reading at Flitwick Lower Foundation Stage 2013

2. Principles and practises • Early years education takes account of the needs of the whole child: • Academic • Physical • Emotional • Spiritual • At FLS, we focus on developing a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school as a solid foundation for a child’s future education

3. FLS OfSTED January 2013 • Standards in English and mathematics are above average. Pupils are doing well in all key stages including the Early Years Foundation Stage. • Children join the Reception class with skill levels similar to those expected for their age, although there is variation within this as an increasing proportion start school with language skills that are below typical expectations. They achieve well overall in the Early Years Foundation Stage, especially in reading and writing.

4. FLS OfSTED January 2013 • Early reading skills, including letters and the sounds they make, are developed exceptionally well. Pupils have regular, well-planned opportunities to read in groups, to adults and silently to themselves. • In the Early Years Foundation Stage, careful checking of children’s progress enables staff to offer a good range of activities for children to learn quickly. They develop the confidence to explore and find things out for themselves. Effective teaching of the sounds that letters make develops early reading and writing at a fast pace.

5. Learning to read at school Language rich environments • Words everywhere • Notices, labels and instructions • Role play and drama opportunities • Wealth of texts The Spoken Word • Listening to stories being retold rather than read • Using role play and drama with and without props to retell stories, poems etc. Modelling • Daily story time • Group reading sessions • Daily phonics sessions

6. Daily phonics • Teach early reading skills: • Focussed listening including hearing and making sounds in a range of environments • Hearing and saying rhyming words and initial sounds • Blending sounds to read simple words • Recognising key words

7. Daily phonics • Develop reading and spelling skills: • Knowing letter names • Recognising the sounds individual letters and groups of letters can make • Segmenting sounds to spell • Forming letters to write the letters for those sounds

8. Daily phonics • Introduce new sounds and key words: • Using a range of games and activities • THRASS resources and other phonics games to motivate, reinforce and enhance skills learned

9. THRASS • Shared vocabulary across the school so that children aren’t confused • Multisensory approach • Clear annunciation • Using names of letter to talk about the sounds they can make

10. THRASS • Identify blocks of letters that make sounds • graphs (1 letter that makes 1 sounds, e.g. ‘b’ as in ‘bird’) • digraphs(2 letters that make 1 sound, e.g. ‘sh’ as in ‘shark’) • trigraphs (3 letters that make 1 sound, e.g. ‘dge’ as in ‘bridge’)

11. THRASS • Jack and Jill went up the hill tofetchapailofwater. f e tch p ai l

12. Reading at school Variety of reading times • Whole class story times • Shared reading / modelling reading skills • Group reading activities • Paired reading sessions • Individual reading opportunities

13. Reading at school Group Reading • In small groups to cater for individual needs • Books from levelled reading schemes provide words children can decode and recognise • Use simple language to specifically teach reading skills such as blending, decoding, sentence structure and understanding of the text

14. Reading Schemes • Staff provide books at an appropriate level to introduce vocabulary according to the child’s phonic knowledge and key word recognition • Use basic words that children can decode (sound out) as independent readers

15. Reading Schemes • Millions of children learned to read before any reading schemes were ever invented! • There is far better literature with language rich text and illustrations to spark the imagination

16. Reading Schemes • Schemes can de-motivate and limit young proficient readers • Asking a child to only choose books from a particular level/colour is very restrictive • The major disadvantage of simple books is the limited language

17. Reading at home Parents are a child’s first teachers • Nurture reading for enjoyment • Reading for enjoyment will help reinforce skills learned at school.  • Children need to read books they enjoy…there will still be words they can recognise or decode in a book of their choice

18. Reading at home • By reading widely and not always at the most basic level children learn new facts and new vocabulary. • Reading does not always have to be challenging… • Newspapers, magazines, internet, instructions, the back of a cereal packet…Whatever they want to read!

19. Reading at home • Home / School Reading records are a perfect opportunity for you to provide information to staff about your child’s love of reading • Staff use these records to celebrate reading skills your child demonstrates at school

20. Key points • Enjoy sharing a wide variety of books with your child • Encouraging them to choose a reading book from the classroom book box every day • Talk about why they chose it • Encouraging them to choose a book or talking story from school / local library • Read to them and with them • Model reading in a variety of contexts • Model decoding words by using your fingers to cover up other letters to find blocks of letters within words

21. Key points • Sing lots of nursery rhymes • Have a THRASS chart at home to play games with • Make up silly stories to develop vocabulary, imagination and story structure • Use clear pronunciation when talking about sounds letters make • Use the letter names from the alphabet

22. Early Reading at Flitwick Lower