At Bulmer school we teach synthetic phonics, this means that when your child starts school they will quickly start to learn the skills that are needed for reading.
Every day we practise letter sounds, listen here to find out the sounds that the letters make:
http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/content/games/foamPhonemes_v10.html
Once we have learnt the first set of sounds (phonemes) then we start to join the sounds together to make words like ‘is it in’
At the same time we learn tricky words. These are words that cannot be easily sounded out like the. We need to learn these words by sight and keep practising them.
At school we help children to learn the sounds by using a model lead test approach, this means that we say:
- My turn- and tell the child the sound or word
- Together- and say the sound or word with the child
- Your turn- child says the word on their own
We also play games and practise reading in a really fun way.
Your child will bring home a words and sounds box with the words that they are learning for you to practise with them at home.
Initially children bring home picture books for you to talk about with your child. When they are ready they will bring home books with words. We use the Cliff Moon individual approach to reading and have colour coded boxes of books from a range of different reading schemes that are all at the same level. Initially there are mainly books from the Oxford Reading Tree scheme.
Spending regular time reading with your child will make a massive difference to the progress that they make. You will see that there are all sorts of ideas for things to talk about in the front cover of the Oxford reading tree books. You may also like to visit www.oxfordowl.co.uk for more ideas.
