Phonics

Children at our school are taught phonics through a Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme. It is an approach which teaches children to recognise letters (graphemes) and their associated sounds (phonemes). It involves breaking the word down into the smallest units of sound. So, for example the word “stand” has 5 sounds s/t/a/n/d.

Please see below documents on the rhymes we say when writing our letters, a sound mat of sounds that we will know by the end of year and a hand writing guide of how to form each of the letters.

Reading

Reading will be a key focus in our learning throughout the year. As your children progress through our school we will help to develop a love of books and reading, sharing and exploring a variety of texts and text types.

Children will be encouraged to share and to change their reading books independently.  By allowing children to select their own books it allows them to begin to take some responsibility for their own learning but also read books of their own choosing which helps instill within them a love of reading for pleasure.

We will of course be on hand to remind and encourage children to change their reading books as regularly as they like, so please do give them a little reminder that they should change their reading book if you know that they need to. Many of the children are enjoying having this independence but reminders are always useful!