Reading and Writing in Reception Class

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1 Reading and Writing in Reception Class This half term your child will be starting the exciting journey of learning to read and write! They will begin to learn letter sounds and words and will take home books to read to you. I have made this booklet to share how your child will learn at school and to help you support your child with their reading and writing at home. Please drop in anytime if you have any questions! Anneli Gasiorek Reception Class Teacher

2 Phonics and writing What we do in class Each day I will teach a new sound using a Jolly Phonics story and the action to match the story. Using a story and actions ensures phonics is a fun and active way to learn, and will help the children to remember the sound. We will all practise saying the sound e.g ssssssssssss and think of words beginning with that sound, emphasising the sound at the beginning. I will then model how to write the letter and the children will practise first in the air, and then later on whiteboards, all sitting on the carpet. We will have a go at writing a few words that begin with that sound too. Each new sound we learn is revised at the beginning of every phonics session. During the day the children will independently complete a 'Star Activity', this activity will be practising forming the letter with different coloured pens to make a 'rainbow letter'. We will also practise writing short words, and lists of words in groups with me or independently. The children may only be hearing the first sound to start with. To help them hear more sounds in words we practise lots of segmenting. This means sound-talking the word, breaking it up into individual sounds e.g. c-a-t What you can do at home You can reinforce this learning by playing I-spy games, writing sounds, looking for sounds in books, or spotting letters and making the sound when out and about. Make learning letters and writing fun! You can write letters in the sand at the playground with sticks, or use leaves and stones to create words and letter shapes. Good hand-eye co-ordination is essential for forming letters. If you feel your child is finding it hard to form the letters using a pencil, encourage activities that develop hand strength, pencil control and co-ordination such as colouring in, lego, tweezing, threading, or any toys that have small fiddly bits!

3 Reading What we do in class I will read with your child every week for a 20 minute 'Guided Reading' session. They will be in groups of 4-6 children and I will often spend time after a group hearing individual children read. This session has a warm-up activity such as a bingo game to practise sounds. We will then learn to recognise a 'tricky' word or two from the book to help us with fluency when we are reading. (A 'tricky' word is a word you can't sound out and read phonetically such as 'the'.) We will then read the book together as a group or take turns reading a page each with a partner. After reading I will ask questions about what happened in the story and will often ask the children to read it again independently at their own pace. Hearing your child read at home The small reading books I send home from class are for your child to read to you. These at first will be repetitive, enabling children to predict what the words say, using the pictures and initial sounds to help with this prediction. Even though it may seem your child is not 'reading' this is a very important stage as they learn to understand that one spoken word is the same as a group of letters on a page with spaces around them! You can help your child to learn this by slowly reading the first page or two, pointing to each word as you say it e.g. He went on the slide. As your child realises the book is repeating itself, they will be able to read to you. Ensure your child always points underneath each word as they say it. Encourage your child to use the picture and initial sound to guess the word that changes. For example the next page could be of a boy going on the swings and using the pattern of the language your child will be able to read the sentence, using the picture to help them to read He went on the swing. Draw their attention to the initial sound (s in swing) e.g. Can you see that the word swing begins with sssss? Challenge your child by asking them if they can remember what the first word in the sentence is He and if they can find it. As they grow confident in this, see if they can find other words. This will help them to learn 'tricky'

4 words and reinforce the understanding that the words follow the order in which we say them. As your child learns more sounds they will be able to blend the sounds in the words Blending means saying the sounds, and hearing the word by blending them together e.g. saying ''d-o-g - that's dog!'' We will send appropriate books home as their skills grow. Challenge your child to blend words that you sound out, e.g. m-u-g and see if they can hear the word you are saying. See if they can do this independently with simple words in the books too. If they can t remember the sound a letter makes, give them time to remember it, but helping them will positively reinforce that sound too. Reading Records Remember to check the targets that are in your child s reading record. It is also very important you return the books to be changed every Friday. If you would like more or less books, please note this in the record. Points to remember when reading with your child Encourage the child to take ownership of the book, choosing one, independently placing it flat on the table in front of them. Book talk discuss the front cover what might the story be about? How do they know? Where is the title? Can we sound out the title? If a child wants to, allow them to look through the book first, talking about the pictures and discussing the events in the book before starting to read it. When ready, encourage the children to put their finger under the first word on the first page and sound it out. They then continue onto the next words, pointing to the letters and sounding them out loud to blend the word. If a child can t remember the sound encourage them to find the sound on the alphabet chart. Ensure the child sounds out a word and then blends that word before moving onto the next word e.g I-t, it, i-s, is, a c-a-

5 t, cat not i-t i-s a c-a-t (simply saying sounds and not words). After reading the words, ask them to go back and re-read the whole sentence It is a cat. This is a good point to check their comprehension by asking questions about the sentence and the page. Encourage children to always point to each word as they say them (tracking) Help them with words that cannot be easily read phonetically but encourage them to recognise these key words such as the, I, a, and, no, go, to, like by sight e.g remember this is a tricky word which tricky word is it? Discuss the pictures and the story as you go along, and after you have finished the book. This is a very exciting time and the progress the children make is wonderful! Reading with your child as often as possible will have a huge impact on their progress. If you have any questions please feel free to stop by for a chat after school.