LEARN WITH YOUR CHILD MORNING NOVEMBER 2015

READING

AN INTRODUCTION TO READING

Words are all around us – in signs, in newspapers, in timetables – so reading is a vital skill we need to provide our children with so that they can access the world they live in.

Terms you may hear during the teaching of reading

Phoneme: the sound a letter or letters makes. Phonics: the teaching of our sound system. Grapheme: a written representation of a

phoneme. Blending: merging a series of sounds together to

make a word. Decoding: working out an unknown word. Fluency: the ease with which a child can read a

text. Expression: the way we change our voices when

a character is speaking or when we see certain punctuation e.g. !

How do we teach children to read?

Our children begin to learn the skills they will need to become confident, fluent readers as soon they start school.

This begins in YR through the teaching of daily phonics so that the children can begin to learn the phonic sounds needed to crack our alphabetic code.

They use Jolly Phonics songs and actions to help them learn which letter/letters make each sound.

They will also learn the skill of blending sounds together to make words e.g. c-a-t makes cat.

Key Stage 1

As children move into Key Stage 1, there continues to be a strong emphasis on the use of phonics to de-code unknown words.

o The children will participate in whole class daily phonics sessions.

o The focus is on learning new sounds and practising blending and segmenting, real and made up ‘alien’ words (an important skill)

o Some words will need to be learnt by sight (high frequency words) as they can’t be sounded out e.g. the/my

Guided Reading

Children also have opportunities each week to apply their phonic skills during Guided Reading sessions, which take place each day.

During this time the teacher and teaching assistant will work with a small group of children on an appropriately levelled text.

Children will read aloud the text and answer questions about it to show they are understanding what they are reading e.g. Predicting what might happen next, discussing how a character is feeling.

During this time, the other children in the class will be involved with a variety of independent reading activities.

Key Stage 2

As children progress through Key Stage 2, the emphasis shifts from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’ with a greater emphasis on comprehension skills.

Children begin to find quotations to back up their answers and to consider why an author has chosen a particular word and the impact it has on a reader.

For those children who still need to build on their phonic skills, this will also continue in Key Stage 2.

The structure of Guided Reading sessions continues from Year 1 and 2 with the tasks and texts being clearly differentiated to suit the needs of the children.

Reading Interventions

For those children who find reading challenging, we provide a range of different reading interventions to try and support them in closing the gap. These include:

Rapid Readers Extra phonic groups with Teaching

Assistants Extra reading sessions through Pupil

Premium Daily word grids Extra practise with reading volunteers

Home Reading

It will have a huge impact if you can support your child at home by practising their home reading book with them as often as possible.

In Year 1 the children’s book comes from the ORT scheme but from Year 2 onwards, the children choose their own book from a selection at the correct level. This means they should bring home something that appeals to them.

Make it an enjoyable time, offer lots of praise and encouragement. If they are tired/reluctant, offer to share the reading by doing a page each.

A little and often is fantastic. Please fill in your child’s home reading card so their

class teacher knows they are reading at home.

Questions to support children’s reading

It is really important that children are able to answer questions about what they are reading.

This shows they are reading for meaning which is the whole purpose of reading.

The questions on the sheet can offer ideas about the sorts of things you could ask children about.

Other ways to encourage reading at home

Join the local library / share the school library books. Encourage reading for pleasure – able readers may

just want to enjoy a simple picture book and less able readers may want to experience chapter books which can be read to them.

Read newspapers – e.g. football reports – or comics. Read to a younger brother or sister or even a teddy! Let children see you reading. Read signs / labels in the environment when you are

out and about. Read recipes when doing some cooking.

Seeing for yourselves...

You are now invited to join your children in their classrooms while Guided Reading is taking place.

You will be able to see them involved in either a reading session with their teacher or teaching assistant or in an independent activity(please feel free to help them with this).

In the second part of the session we would like you to take the opportunity to share your child’s current class reading book with them and have a go at asking and discussing some of the questions from the sheet with them.

Please be aware the children are encouraged to maintain as quiet an atmosphere as possible during Guided Reading.

Have a lovely morning!