Often when I read with a pupil, I need to remind her/him (and myself) to point to the words. As fluent readers we don’t point to words on the page, but sometimes if we come across a difficult or new word we are trying to work out – we will use our finger to work […]
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Beginner readers need a great deal of practice. Where possible, sending home decodable books is an important opportunity for reading practice. It is difficult for the teacher or teaching assistant to hear every child read every day or even every week. So, an adult reading at home with the child has a very significant role […]
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Word chains are really important for all children learning to read, especially those who find reading hard. Some programmes call this activity ‘Sound swap’ (Sounds-Write) or ‘Switch it’ (Reading Simplified). Why word chains are a useful teaching tool Word chains offer children practice of the underlying skills of reading: blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation (adding, […]
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Decodable books have a very specific and limited purpose in the process of learning to read. They provide reading practice as children learn to use the sound/letter correspondences they have been taught and the strategy of blending sounds. As their code knowledge grows, children will be able to apply it to ‘authentic’ texts. Authentic texts […]
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English is complex and we need to teach reading in a structured way, from simple to complex. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding high-frequency words with spellings the children haven’t learnt yet because they are present in even the simplest of sentences, e.g. ‘The cat is on the mat’. In the very first sentences children read […]
Read MoreIn my previous blog post I mentioned I was lucky enough to listen to a much-sought-after webinar given by the Reading Ape. Well, I came away with another rethink: “Spelling helps reading more than reading helps spelling,” the Reading Ape explained. This is based on the research and work of Perfetti, and is supported by […]
Read MoreI recently listened to the much-anticipated webinar given by the Reading Ape. (If you haven’t heard of the elusive Reading Ape, do check out the website which has fantastic research-based articles about reading.) Anyway, the Reading Ape discussed the research of Cattell, 1886, that showed that we read words quicker than we read individual letters. […]
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Now that kids are back in school, teachers must make sure that they have solid foundations for reading. These foundations will ensure reading success throughout their education and beyond. Who knows what exciting opportunities lay ahead for our young readers? But first they will need to learn to read. So what are the foundations we […]
Read MoreAll phonics programmes should have a ‘scope and sequence’ but what does this actually mean? ‘Scope’ means what you are teaching When teaching reading with systematic phonics, ‘scope’ means teaching the Alphabetic Code. English has 44 sounds and more than 175 spellings for those sounds. So, do we need to teach them all? Which are […]
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Decodable books build ‘reading muscle’ – another great post from Spelfabet. If you are wondering why kids need to read decodable books in order to become fluent readers – here is the answer! All adults can find listening to beginner readers agonising and at times, it can be hard work for both the child and […]
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