Parent Workshop 2; Reading in the Foundation Stage

Parent Workshop 2; Reading in the Foundation Stage

Getting ready to read

•Reading is not natural, language is.

•Children need to listen to stories, songs and rhymes, handle books and enjoy looking at pictures.

•Talking with your child is so important.

•It is vital that children enjoy reading experiences.

Letter sounds and letter names

•Names of letters do not help reading at early stages.

•Continue to sing alphabet songs but concentrate on sounds and lower case letters to help reading.

•Letter names can be introduced once the children are confident recognising letters by their sounds and blending them together to read words.

Phonics

•What is phonics? – using sounds and blending these sounds to read words,e.g. s-a-t

•Pure sounds – sssss not ser, tttt not ter, nnnn not ner, mmmm not mer, lllll not ler, ks not x

•26 letter sounds taught - a through to z (but not in that order)

•44 ‘phonemes’ including the diagraphs i.e. ‘oa’ in boat and ‘ar’ in car.

What your child will be learning

•Have an interest in books.

•Recognise familiar words.

•Recognise all 44 sounds and use them to read words by blending.

•Read sentences independently.

•Retell stories in the correct sequence, drawing on language patterns in stories.

•Find information in non-fiction texts.

What should I write?

•A common problem parents have is being unsure of what to write in a reading record book. These comments might help you!

Billy is beginning to use the first sounds of the words to help him.

It was great; Zoe found all her new words were in the story book!

We really enjoyed the pictures; Betty told a lovely story from them.

Jimmy managed to sound out some words all by himself today.

Bob explained his favourite part of the story showing good understanding of what had happened.

What questions should I ask?

Encouraging your child to talk about stories that you have shared is a very important part of the process of learning to read. Some examples are provided below but please refer to the sheet stuck into your child’s reading record book for further suggestions;

•What was your favourite part of the story? Why did you enjoy that part?

•Why do you think Floppy fell into the water?

•Has that ever happened to you? What did it feel like?

Fun reading activities; it’s not all about books!

•Find sets of words which begin with the same letter.

•Make sound trains (last letter of one matches first letter of another e.g. cat-tap-pin).

•Play alliterative games e.g. ‘Annie has got an apple, Ben has got a bike’, etc.

•Use magnetic letters to make words.

•Make labels for things around the house e.g. door, window.

•Make letters out of play dough, paint letters etc.

•Give your child simple riddles, ‘I write with you, I begin with a ‘p’.

•Play ‘I Spy’ type games

•Make up silly sentences. Count the words in sentences.

•Have a competition to Spot high frequency words

•Play sound/rhyming bingo

•Play ‘snap’ with pairs of high frequency word cards

How you can help

•Read the book through once without stopping

•Encourage your child to handle the book, turn pages etc.

•Point to words as you read and encourage them to when they are reading.

•Look at the pictures and talk about them.

•Encourage your child to talk about the book.

•Draw upon story language e.g. once upon a time, happily ever after etc.

•Practise reading sounds and words on a daily basis

•Use the sheet overleaf to check how your child is progressing with the sounds they need to know by the end of the Reception year. This could be photocopied and turned in to a game such as snap, used as a board game to randomly generate letters to think of words for or cut up and used as flashcards etc.

•Watch Mr Thorne Does Phonics to check you are also pronouncing all the letter sounds correctly.

Sounds children need to know by the end of Reception

Please see ‘Mr Thorne Does Phonics’) for how to pronounce these sounds correctly.

s / a / t / p / i
n / m / d / g / o
c / k / ck / e / u
r / h / b / f / ff
l / ll / ss / j / v
w / x / y / z / zz
qu / ch / sh / th / ng
ai / ee / igh / oa / oo
ar / or / ur / ow / oi
ear / air / ure / er

Parent workshop feedback 2014-15;2. Reading in the Foundation Stage

Thank you for joining me for the above workshop, I hope you found it useful. Please take a couple of minutes to share your thoughts on the experience. Feel free to provide your name if you would like.

What made you decide to attend the work shop? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

What did you enjoy most about the session?…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Do you feel you have benefitted from attending? If so, how?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Is there anything else you would have liked to discuss?

Any other comments or suggestions

Many thanks for taking the time to complete this, your feedback is very much appreciated and will inform how I plan future workshops. Your thoughts are extremely important because I need to know what you need to know, to enable you to support your child’s learning effectively at home.

Thank you. Mrs Ashton.