Phonics and Early Reading 
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At Cherry Dale, we are committed to developing children’s love of books and enjoyment of stories, poems and rhymes whilst ensuring that their journey of learning to read gets off to a flying start!
Reading in Foundation Stage focuses on the development of:
· Listening, enjoying and joining in with stories and rhymes
· Learning basic book/text conventions – cover, title, left to right, top to bottom
· Talking about characters, setting and plot (prediction and recall)
· Learning letter sounds and begin to blend them together through daily RWI Phonic lessons
· Developing knowledge of wide range of vocabulary and high frequency words
By the end of Foundation Stage we aim to ensure most children can:
· Read and understand simple sentences
· Use phonic knowledge to decode simple words and read them aloud accurately
· Read some common irregular words
· Demonstrate an understanding, when talking with others, about what they have read
Activities used to develop reading skills:
· Read Write Inc daily phonics lessons
· Story telling which is fun and exciting
· A number of core stories which are shared regularly and linked resources are added to provision
· Small group/individual phonic intervention
· Shared reading sessions to reinforce skills
· Role play and drama activities and provision enhancements linked to stories/rhymes
In Nursery, teaching focuses on developing the children’s familiarity with stories, nursery rhymes poems and songs. Through daily storytime, singing and rhyme time, children develop their sensitivity to sounds, rhythms and rhymes. Planned and purposeful play activities, support children to internalise stories and make them their own. Planned talk sessions support the children’s language development by growing their vocabulary and helping them to structure their ideas in full sentences to share their ideas and retell stories. We actively encourage parents to read daily with their children using the books in our lending library.
In Reception, children begin to learn to read right from the start. We follow the Read Write Inc programme of phonics teaching which teaches children to read in a very simple way. They learn to:
1. Say ‘pure’ sounds.
2. Read letters by their ‘sounds’
3. Blend these sounds into words
4. Read the words in a story.
Children have a daily phonics lesson. They are organized into small groups according to their knowledge of letters and ability to read words. The groups are taught by EYFS staff who have all been trained to deliver the Read Write Inc programme. Each day the children learn a new sound and practice orally blending, reading and writing the sound in simple words. The lessons follow a prescribed format and sequence using Read Write Inc materials. Children bring home books to read that are carefully matched to the phonics sounds they have been learning in class.
We encourage all of our parents to be actively involved in their child’s reading journey by helping them to read and write sounds correctly, sharing the black and white story books at home and reading the book bag books. These will be changed weekly on a Friday in school. To support you with this we hold a phonics workshop during the Autumn Term. Below, you will find some information about Read Write Inc which may be useful.
Set 1 Parent Booklet
Set 2 Parent Booklet
Rationale
Fluency and Decoding Progression
RWI Overview
RWI Glossary
