A Literacy meeting for parents was held in January to explain how we teach phonics, reading and writing. The slides from the session can be found below.

To see the notes from this meeting click on the link below.

The children are taught sounds in a particular order – see the link below.

This is taught in Reception and repeated over and again:

Look at the alphabet chart to help you know how to pronounce each sound. For example to know how to say “u” say “umbrella” and listen to the first sound you say.

This shows the complexities of spelling – different ways to spell the same sound!

These words need to be learnt and read as a whole word and not sounded out:

Look at the sheet to see how to correctly form the letters. Writing letters back to front is quite common in Reception and Year 1. Always correct errors as bad habits are hard to break.

See this sheet to look at correct number formation:

The children learn that some combinations of letters look the same but can sound different (eg the double o sound could be in “look” and also in “spoon”). Whilst other sounds look different but sound the same (eg meet and meat)! It can be very tricky and we use lots of repetition to help the children to remember. See the link below for word families i.e. groups of words with the same spelling/sound.

Learning to read isn’t just about finding out how to read the words. It is essential that children understand what they are reading about. This is called reading comprehension. See the link below for ideas you can use to develop your child’s comprehension.

Look at this document to see what typical writing looks like at the end of each year. Look at pages 9-16 for Year 1.