Help Your Child at Home – Literacy
Thursday 8th October 2015
Reading and Phonics
Early Reading Skills
Children’s early experiences of reading begin with:
- listening to stories (home/nursery/school)
- talking about stories
- developing their listening skills
Stages of early reading:
- discussion books
- sharing a book with an adult who ‘models’ reading
- sound recognition/blending words/tricky words
Discussion books (no words)
Focus on talking about the book and what happens in the story, use the pictures
as clues for discussion.
Model how to use a book correctly (turning the pages from right to left).
Talk about what the story could be about using the front cover.
How do we teach reading at school?
We start the process of teaching children to read by recognising and
making the sound of each letter of the alphabet.
The next stage is to ‘blend’ sounds together to ‘sound out’ a word. For
example c – a – t = cat, sh – o –p = shop
All children develop blending skills at their own pace!!!
Tricky words
Tricky Words – The most common words that
children will come across in their reading books
when they begin to read (can also be called high
frequency words).
For example:
• come, the, to, in, at, look, said.
Children need to learn to recognise these words
by sight and not rely on blending them.
What is Letters and
Sounds?
 Letters
and Sounds teaches phonics skills
through games and hands-on learning
experiences (multi-sensory approach)
 The aim of Letters and Sounds is to ensure
that children are well-placed to read and
spell words with fluency and confidence by
the time they reach the end of Key Stage 1.
 Letters and Sounds promotes the
development of word recognition and
language comprehension (understanding
what words mean)
Daily phonics teaching (Letters and Sounds)
20 minute session each day to teach children to link sounds and letters
by learning how to say the sound for each letter of the alphabet and
groups of letters like sh, ch, th, igh.
Letters and Sounds also teaches the skill of blending and segmenting.
Jolly Phonics sounds set 1 - s, a, t, i, p, n
set 2 - c, k, e, h, r, m, d
set 3 – g, o, u, l, f, b
set 4 –ai, j, oa, ie, ee, or
set 5 – z, w, ng, v, oo
set 6 – y, x, ch, sh, th,
set 7 – qu, ou, oi, ue, er, ar
*articulation of phonemes (youtube)
Blending – hearing sounds and merging them together
to make a word.
s – n – a – p = snap
p – o – t = pot
Segmenting – splitting up a word into its individual
sounds to spell a word
dog = d – o – g
mat = m – a – t
Putting it all together!
Early reading skills of blending, high frequency
word recognition, using picture cues and discussion
skills will all fit together to enable children to
read.
For example “ Dad was mad at Floppy”
red – blended word
blue – high frequency words/words learnt by sight
Resources for home
Tricky Words
Card 3
said
look
the
huff
hiss
puff
fill
hill
Blending cards
miss
kiss
cuff
Writing
How do the skills in Letters and Sounds support our work on reading/writing in the
EYFS?

Reaffirms the importance of using the correct letter formation

Enables them to establish the link between the sound of a letter (phoneme) and the
written form (grapheme)

Encourages them to become independent writers by hearing sounds and ‘having a go’
at writing independently (piece of elastic!)

Role-Play Writing – free writing in the role-play area e.g. shopping lists, registers,
birthday cards.

Teaches the high frequency words that we read in our reading books

Teacher models different ways of writing

Learning through play is fun!
Examples of early writing

Children at the very early stages of writing will use
emergent writing.

This shows the skill of understanding that print conveys
meaning.
As children develop the skills of segmenting, blending and forming letters they experiment with
writing.
By the end of the EYFS, most children should be able to:
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Link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.
Hear and say sounds in words in the order in which they occur.
Blend sounds in words.
Use phonic knowledge to read simple regular words
Attempt to read more complex words using phonics knowledge
Write own name and other words from memory
Hold a pencil and use it effectively to form recognisable letters
Attempt writing for a variety of purposes (letters, postcards, lists)
Use phonics knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically attempts at more
complex words
Begin to form captions and simple sentences sometimes using punctuation
What reading skills can you help your child to develop?
Listen to and join in with poems and stories
Suggest how the story might end
Talk about the pictures in books
Handle books carefully, hold them the correct way up and
turn the pages
Understand the concept of a word
Enjoy a range of books
Retell a story in the correct sequence
What reading skills can you help your child to develop?
Use story language, for example, “once upon a time, run run
as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread
man”
Read high frequency words and simple sentences
Blend sounds to read words
Talk about the characters in a story
Read stories to your child to model how pages are turned,
how expression is used, how to use different voices for
characters and enjoy sharing books and stories together.
What reading skills can you help your child to develop?
Reading in real-life – let your child see you read, for
example, a recipe, newspaper, magazine, bus sign, shop
signs and labels on items in shops.
Play games:
I-Spy
Make up silly rhymes and phrases
Choose a category and think of items for each letter of
the alphabet apple, banana, cherry and so on
Play bingo games or matching pairs with sounds and tricky
words.
Thank you for coming, we hope you enjoyed the session
and found it useful. If you have any questions please ask
the staff and they will be happy to help you.
Mrs Robbins, Miss C Price and Mr Allen
Thank you for coming.
Any questions?