Literacy

Reading readiness

 

Developing your child's communication and language is vital in preparing them for learning to read and write. From their first day here, your child will enjoy high quality interactions, and have their love of books, rhymes and songs nurtured. Books enable your child to expand their vocabulary, by introducing more complicated language, grammar and sentence structure. By talking about the world around us, snuggling on the sofa to share books (stories and non-fiction) and other strategies in my curriculum for Communication and Language, your child will develop their language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing). When children learn to read for themselves, those with better language development and vocabulary will have better comprehension.

 

Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. How I support this is explained now:

 

Using the principals from Letters and Sounds Phase 1, I want to develop your child's speaking and listening skills and lay the foundations for their phonic work as they start school.

 

General sound discrimination – environmental. By going on a listening walk or playing lotto games, I will raise your child's awareness of the sounds around them and help to develop their listening skills.

 

General sound discrimination – instrumental sounds.  I will develop your child's awareness of sounds made by various instruments and noise makers.

 

General sound discrimination – body percussion.  By singing songs and action rhymes, listening to music and developing a sounds vocabulary, I will develop children’s awareness of sounds and rhythms.

 

Rhythm and rhyme.  Playing/ listening to rhyming stories, rhyming bingo, clapping out the syllables in words and odd one out, I will develop your child's appreciation and experiences of rhythm and rhyme in speech.

 

Alliteration.  I will help you child tune into the initial sounds of words, with activities including I-Spy type games and matching objects which begin with the same sound.

 

Voice sounds.  Your child will start to distinguish between different vocal sounds and begin to orally blend and segment those sounds. Activities include the Letter Box game, where your child chooses a coloured envelope to post, and I sound out the colour of the envelope feed – /r/-/e/-/d/ red, with your child joining in.

 

Oral blending and segmenting.  Your child will further develop their oral blending and segmenting skills. Taking the previous Letter Box Game, your child will choose the correct envelope from four different colours to post as I say /r/-/e/-/d/ red; our I may ask them to say the sounds they hear.

 

Writing - readiness

Research suggests that the best way to support your child's writing is by giving them opportunities to build the muscle strength they will need later in school to sit and write, and to focus on developing your child's communication and language through: inspiring your child's love of books, songs and rhymes; engaging them in storytelling and shared book reading. Your child will build the skills needed to hold a pencil by running, climbing, throwing, catching, crawling, digging, pulling and pushing, pinching, threading, using tweezers, painting, mark making, colouring and making various large and small movements. Only then will they be ready to start making marks to represent letters and numbers.