Clapham Terrace Community
Primary School
Bedtime story event 2013
Why encourage your child to read?
A reading child is, quite simply, a successful child.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) has concluded that reading for pleasure is even more
important than social class in determining academic success.
When children read often and with enthusiasm, usually just for the
sheer fun of it, they lay foundations that last for life.
They learn to empathise.
They access information more easily.
Almost by osmosis they internalise the essential skills of spelling,
grammar and vocabulary.
They learn to express themselves verbally and in writing.
Why encourage your child to read?
Children who are read to every day at age three have a vocabulary at age
five which is nearly two months more advanced than those who are not.
A child taken to the library on a monthly basis from ages three to five is
two and a half months ahead of an equivalent child at age five who did not
visit the library so regularly.
Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and
write more than at any other time in human history. They will need
advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act
as citizens, and conduct their personal lives. They will need literacy to cope
with the flood of information they will find everywhere they turn and to
feed their imaginations so they can create the world of the future.
In a complex and sometimes even dangerous world, their ability to read
can be crucial.
Top tips for reading to children:
1. Do the voices
2. Keep them guessing
Ask questions about what you think will happen next
3. Always leave them wanting more
Stop reading at the end of the chapter or mid sentence to build suspense
and act as a cliffhanger so they want to find out more!
3. Build it into your daily routine
Book talk
As children learn to read, sometimes what they focus on
working out what the words say and forget about the story.
To make sure children learn the two skills together, ask open
questions to get them thinking. In the story of The Gruffalo,
you could ask, ‘How do you think the mouse is feeling when
he meets the Gruffalo?’ or ‘How do you think the roasted
fox is made?’
Other questions to encourage book talk could include:
Where do you think they are going?
What might happen next?
Which way would you go?
Which character would you like to be? Why?
Phonics
What is phonics and how can I help
my child at home?
Phonics terms
Phoneme – the smallest unit of sound found in a
word e.g. a
 Digraph – two letters making one sound e.g. sh
 Split digraph – where a vowel makes a long sound
when not adjacent to the letter e
e.g. make five stone
even tube
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Trigraph – three letters making one sound e.g. igh
Tricky words – words which we cannot sound out
e.g. The
 CVC words – three letter words with a consonant,
vowel, consonant
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Phonics terms
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Blending – putting the separate sounds
together to make a word
e.g. c / a / t = cat
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Segmenting – break down a whole word
into individual sounds
e.g. ship = sh / i / p
Phonics stages and assessment
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Letters and sounds phases:
Phase 1 - Nursery – ongoing: awareness of rhyme and alliteration
Phase 2 – Reception for 6 weeks: cvc words and vowels
Phase 3 – 12 weeks: all phonemes and some long and short
digraphs e.g. sh and oo
Phase 4 – 6 weeks: blending words with adjacent consonants
e.g. w-e-n-t
Phase 5 – Year 1: new graphemes and alternate pronunciations e.g.
ow in now and snow
Phase 6 – Year 2: focus on spelling rules for word endings e.g.
adding ed or ing to a word.
Phonics stages and assessment
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Phonics screening check:
At the end of year 1 all pupils are tested using the statutory
Phonics Screening Check
It allows us to assess pupils to find out if they have learned phonics
decoding skills to an age-appropriate standard.
Children who have not reached this level by the end of year 1 will
receive addition phonics support in year 2
The check consists of 40 words containing a mixture of real and
pseudo-words (these pseudo words are accompanied by a picture
of an alien to provide a context)
thuzz
orb
How to help at home
Sing songs and nursery rhymes and tap out the
beat
 Play the robot game – d – o – g
 Play I spy with a sound focus e.g. words
beginning with s or words with the oo sound
 Online games on phonics play website
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm
http://www.hairyphonics.com
Use phonics terminology when reading with your
child
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Thank you