St Mary’s Primary School

Reading

At St Mary’s we believe that reading is the passport to

all other areas of learning.

Reading should be fun!

Print is all around us.

road signs

posters

shop fronts

magazines

What we do at St. Mary’s-

• Picture only books

• Labels, displays, games, ICT

• Story CD’s, rhymes and songs

• Designated reading areas in classroom.

Features of a book

title

author

Phonics A phoneme is the smallest unit of

sound in a word.

m , a , t = mat

sh , i , p = ship

ch , ur , ch = church

There are 44 phonemes in the English language.

Children are also taught the different ways a

sound can be represented.

Pear, pair Here, hearSee, sea

Written phonemes are called graphemes.

BlendingUsing phonemes to build a

word.

sh o p – sho - shop

Segmenting Breaking a word into

phonemes.

church – ch / ur /ch

Tricky WordsSome can be worked out.

this , in , it

Some need to be learnt by sight.

some , what , the

Enjoy reading!!!

• Ways you can support your children at home• Sing an alphabet song together.• Play ‘I spy’, using letter names as well as sounds.• Continue to play with magnetic letters, using some of

the two grapheme (letter) combinations:• Praise your child for trying out words.• Ask teachers for a list of the tricky words.• Set a timer. Call out one word at a time and get your

child to spell it on a magic board or a small whiteboard, against the timer – remember, they can use magnetic letters.

• Play ‘Pairs’, turning over two words at a time trying to find a matching pair. This is especially helpful with the tricky words: the the, to to, no no, go go, I