Bradshaw Community
Primary School
How we teach your child to read
and write.
Aims for the meeting
• to provide information on how we teach
your child to read and write.
• to enhance links between home and
school and enable you to support your
child’s learning.
Phonics
• Phonics underpins early reading and
writing.
• Children need to develop letter sound
knowledge and be able to blend sounds
together to read words.
• They also need to be able to segment
spoken words into separate sounds to
spell.
Letters and Sounds
• At Bradshaw we teach phonics using the
government produced, ‘Letters and Sounds’
programme.
• We teach the children to listen carefully to the
sounds in words, blend sounds together to read
words (b-a-t), recognise the symbols used to
represent sounds (single letters and groups of
letters) and separate the sounds that they can
hear in words to write them down.
Blending and Segmenting
• The 2 key skills children need are the
ability to blend sounds together to read
words and segment sounds that they hear
in words to write them down.
How do we teach Letters and
Sounds?
• The children have daily phonics lessons.
• Children work as a whole class, in small
groups, pairs and sometimes as
individuals.
• Lessons are targeted to children’s needs.
• Children learn through fun activities and
games. The children don’t know they’re
learning!
Phase 1
• Explore and experiment with sounds and
words
• Aim is to make children really listen to
different sounds
• Distinguish between different sounds in
the environment and phonemes
• Learn to orally blend and segment sounds
in words
These skills will be worked on throughout primary school.
Phase 2
• Learn 19 sounds and learn the graphemes
that represent them.
• Move on from orally blending and
segmenting to blending and segmenting
letters to read and spell (maybe with
magnetic letters) VC and CVC words
• Learn letter names
• Introduce two syllable words, simple
captions and some tricky HFW.
Phase 2 letter progression
Set 1:
Set 2:
Set 3:
Set 4:
Set 5:
s
i
g
ck
h
a
n
o
e
b
t
m
c
u
f,ff
p
d
k
r
l,ll
ss
Let’s play a game!
Phase 3
• Teach another 25 sounds and graphemes
to go with them.
• Continue to practise blending and
segmenting using new sounds and two
syllable words.
• Children continue to learn the reversibility
of blending and segmenting.
Phase 3 letter progression
Letters
Set 6:
j
v
w
Set 7:
y
z,zz
Consonant digraphs: ch
Vowel digraphs:
ai ee igh oa oo ar
ear air ure er
x
qu
sh
th
ng
or
ur
ow oi
Let’s play another game!
Phase 4
* Blend adjacent consonants in words and
apply this skill when reading unfamiliar texts,
(CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC)
step
list
clap
grasp strap
* Segment adjacent consonants in words and
apply this in spelling
Beware – Adjacent consonants are not
digraphs. They make two distinct sounds.
Teaching Resources
Include…
• white boards and pens
• magnetic letters
• puppets
• flashcards
• letter fans
• bingo cards
Reading
Our aim is for your child to develop a love
for reading and a skill for life.
What children need to know…
• How to handle a book and turn the pages
• How to track the text on each page
• How to decode or recognise the words on the
page
• Most importantly children need to understand
what they read.
Children develop their reading skills at different rates.
Key Reading Skills
• Children need to be able to decode words
(phonics blending sounds together)
• They need to recognise common words on
sight (high frequency words). Some of
these are decodable but many are not.
the
where
one
How we teach reading
•
•
•
•
•
Read lots of stories and information books
Discuss stories read – interact with texts
Model reading behaviour and enjoyment
Provide a word rich environment
Lots of positive experiences with books –
shared with the whole class, small groups,
pairs and individual.
Strategies for teaching reading
• Modelled and
Shared reading
• Individual reading
• Guided reading
Decoding skills to
comprehension
As children become more competent
decoders and these skills become more
automatic, they can concentrate on
comprehension and interpretation of the
text.
Change of focus in GR sessions.
Home reading books
• Home reading books are organised into bands
of difficulty.
• There are different schemes in each band.
• Children are informally assessed to move to the
next band.
• Children will move through the reading book
bands at different rates.
How can you help?
• Read with your child – share stories every day, follow
your child’s interests and enjoy reading together.
• Encourage your child to practise his/her home reading
book daily. Little and often is best.
• Be positive – encourage every attempt and praise their
efforts. Make reading a really enjoyable time.
• Note your child’s interests and any other comments in
your child’s reading record/planner.
• Please sign your child’s planner to let us know that they
are ready to change their books.
• Don’t forget BugClub.
Writing
Our aim is for your child to become a
confident, independent and creative writer.
What do children need to do?
• Think of what to write.
• Rehearse what they want to write.
• Write down their ideas, segmenting words
to spell and recalling HFWs.
• Hold a pencil correctly and be able to
form letters.
• Reread what they have written.
• Understand what they have written.
What will children do?
•
Make marks – scribbles and squiggles
• ‘Read’ marks
• Use random letters (ones from their names etc…)
• Single letters to represent words
• Initial sounds to represent words
• Initial and final sounds (sometimes dominant sounds)
• Use phonetic spellings
• Include HFWs
• Include learned letter patterns and spelling conventions
How we teach writing
• Lots of different opportunities
to write
• Lots of talk as the basis for
writing
• Celebrate and encourage all
attempts to write
• Model writing in a wide range
of situations (making lists,
writing stories, writing
instructions)
• Phonics sessions –
segmenting to spell words
• Learning to spell HFWs
•
•
•
•
Shared writing
Guided writing
Independent writing
First hand experiences as a
basis for writing
• Letter formation activities
How you can help
• Be a role model – let your child see you writing
and let them help you.
• Value and praise any writing your child does
• Encourage them to write – cards, letters, playing
school
• Let them play at writing – give them a paintbrush
and some water outside, chalks, different
coloured pens, sketch books, folded card to
make cards etc…
• Encourage application of phonics and known
HFWs.
That’s it folks!
Many thanks for coming, feel
free to browse and ask any
questions you might have.