Early Reading and Phonics
Phonics at Witherley CE Primary School
At Witherley CE Primary School all the children in the Explorers and Pathfinders have daily phonic sessions and also learn to read and spell ‘tricky’ words; words which don’t rely on phonics.
All children work through the following levels:
Level 2 which focuses on learning all single sounds and how to read and write them in words.
Level 3 which focuses on learning simple digraph and trigraph sounds and applying these to words and sentences (for example, igh, oo, ear and er).
Level 4 which focuses on learning adjacent consonants in words (for example, fl, pr, cr, and st).
Level 5 which focuses on learning alternative digraph and trigraph sounds and applying these to words and sentences (for example, ie, ph, oe and ai).
- Level 1 phonics is covered at Nursery and runs through all areas of learning and phonics as it focuses on listening, language and communication –recognising everyday sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration and orally blending and segmenting.
This is how the different Levels are covered in each year group:
Explorers - Level 2 to Level 3 over the year, with the aim to begin Level 4 towards the end of the Summer term if this is appropriate for the year group.
Pathfnders Y1 - Level 3 (recap if required) to Level 5 by the end of the Summer term.
Pathfinders Y2 - Level 5 (recap if required) to Level 6 (Spelling and Grammar focus) by the end of the Summer term.
A new reading book
When your child has a new reading book, spend time looking at the pictures, talk about what's happening before you start to look at the words, predict what will happen in the end. This will help with understanding the content and structure of the story.
Reading is more than decoding word. It also involves understanding what the words mean. As part of your book sharing chat, vocabulary in the book can be introduced, talk about what the words mean.
Ask open ended questions, these are questions that require a more in depth answer not just yes or no eg What do you think the little boy is feeling like? How do you know? Where do you think they are going? Why?
Play 'Eye Spy a Word.' This is fun and helps to read tricky words fluently. It helps to translate the reading of the same word from one page to the next developing the child's fluency through scanning for a known word.
It also develops the use of phonic knowledge through sounding out (decoding) the graphemes (written letter) and linking it to the phonemes (unit of sounds) learned in our daily phonics sessions.
Fast Phonics
Quick recall of known sounds.
Using magnetic letters
Magnetic letters are great to use as you not only see the shape of the letter but can feel it.
There are a number of ways that you can use magnetic letters to support reading and spelling for example:-
Make and break a word - build the word then break it up and rebuild it.
Letter sort - sort out letters that are the same or from the same handwriting family
Families of letters
- curly caterpillar letters - a c d e g o f q s
- long ladder letters - l i t u j y
- one- armed robot letters - r b n h m k p
- zig-zag monster letters - v w x z
Word pairs game
How to play:
Choose 4-6 words from your child's reading book.
Write each word onto a separate card or piece of paper.
Then place all of the cards face down on a surface.
Take it in turns to turn 2 cards over and blend the graphemes to read the words aloud.
If the words on a pair of cards match, you keep the cards.