Phonics and Reading
The best place to start...a love of stories!
Using Picturebooks
Why picture books?
- Language development / Enriching vocabulary
- Listening skills / concentration skills / attention span
- Inference, deduction and comprehension
- Developing children's storytelling skills
- Engage with others - shared experiences
- Link with children’s interests
- Way into talking about feelings and experiences
- Transition points / life events
- Special time together, relaxing, togetherness
- Link with parents / home
- Support children with EAL
- Supports mathematical / problem solving skills
- Provoke questions about the world
- Introduce similarities and differences
- Curiosity, imagination, enjoyment!
Phonics
Phase 1 Letters and Sounds
Approx age: 3–4 | Nursery/Reception
Phase 1 supports children’s developing speaking and listening skills and linking of sounds and letters. Activities are divided into seven groups:
- Environmental sounds.
- Instrumental sounds.
- Body percussion.
- Rhythm and rhyme.
- Alliteration.
- Voice sounds.
- Oral blending and segmenting.
Children should be encouraged to enjoy books from as early an age as possible. However, the focus of this phase is on listening to and repeating sounds, rather than on directly reading words.
