Fluent readers may find it difficult to understand why beginner readers find some words difficult to decode. These are often called ‘tricky words’ – but what’s so tricky about them?
Read MoreApproaches to Teaching Reading
Year 1 phonics screening check 2015 – FAQs
Soon the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check will take place. Here are some answers to questions that parents, carers and teachers may have about the check: 1. When will the screening check take place? The screening check will take place on the week commencing June 15th 2015. 2. How will the test be administered? The […]
Read MoreWhat are adjacent consonants?
Synthetic Phonics programmes now talk of ‘adjacent consonants’. What are adjacent consonants? Why is it that the letters ‘bl’ in the word ‘black’ are adjacent consonants while the letters ‘ck’ are not?
Read MoreWhy non-words should be included in the Year 1 Phonics Check
Non-words are nonsense words made up of the spellings (graphemes) a child has already been taught: words like ‘bip’, ‘steg’ or ‘shromp’. Read more to find out why non-words should be included in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check.
Read MoreUsing both decodable books and ‘real’ books with beginner readers
Recent articles in the media about the approach to teaching reading suggest that educators are divided into two camps: the camp supporting ‘real’ books and the camp supporting synthetic phonics. The camp supporting ‘real’ books is promoted by a number of prominent authors, such as Michael Rosen. They have voiced their concerns that using decodable […]
Read MoreWhat is a grapheme?
A grapheme is a letter or a number of letters that represent a sound (phoneme) in a word. Another way to explain it is to say that a grapheme is a letter or letters that spell a sound in a word.
Read MoreYear 1 Phonics Screening check – a good or bad idea?
The DFE will launch a Year 1 phonics screening check from 2012. This test is intended to assess the progress of the pupils’ phonics skills, with the aim of identifying pupils who are falling behind.
Read More‘To blend’ or ‘a blend’? – that is the question
What is the difference between ‘a blend’ (‘blend’ as a noun) and ‘to blend’ (as a verb)? Now that most schools are getting used to using synthetic phonics programmes, some old terms are being dropped and new terms are introduced. So, how do we now use the word ‘blend’: as a noun or a verb?
Read MoreAre ‘tricky’ words and high-frequency words the same?
These days, we hear a lot about ‘tricky’ words, phonically ‘irregular’ words, ‘sight’ words and ‘high-frequency’ words. Do all these terms mean the same thing?
Read MoreWhy the ‘A, B, C’ song is not helpful to beginner readers
Many young children learn to sing the ‘A, B, C’ song in nursery or at home. This song teaches them the names and the order of the letters of the alphabet. It’s a great way to store the alphabetic order of letters in our long-term memories. I still use the alphabet song when using a […]
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