Reading and Phonics

As a school, we are passionate about developing a love of reading. We know the importance of getting all of our children to read well, quickly. This gives them the confidence to become independent readers and engaged, enthusiastic learners.

At Hindley Green Community Primary School we follow the 'Essential Letters and Sounds' Phonics scheme.

Phase 1

At Nursery, your child will have accessed short, early Phonics sessions that focus on Phase 1 Phonics. These activities encourage attention and active listening for patterns, rhymes and sounds. Try some of these Phase 1 Phonics activities with your child to prepare them for learning to read in Reception:

Go on a walk and discuss the sounds you can hear: the crunch of the leaves, the tweet of the birds.
Body percussion: make a beat or rhythm that your child has to copy: clap, stomp, clap, stomp.
Silly soup: Can your child find lots of things that start with a sound to put into a bowl: scissors, socks, sand, string.

Reading Books

To complement the ELS Phonics Scheme, we have invested in lots of high-quality decodable reading books to support your child through their reading journey. Every week, your child will bring home a reading book which complements their Phonics level. It is our expectation that children read and then re-read the same book at least four times in a week. Please support us with this to embed phonics skills fully. Re-reading and repetition ensures that grapheme recognition and blending skills are fully embedded before the next book is given containing the new sounds.

Your child will also have access to a full library of online ELS e-Books which can be accessed via the button below.

Please contact your child's class teacher for log-in details.

10 tips for reading at home - click here

7 top tips for reading at home - click here

Pure Sounds

We teach children to say the pure sound when segmenting (sounding out) words, for example we teach them to say "sss" and not "s-uh". Please see the below video for examples of pure sounds.

Phonics

Children in Reception start daily Phonics sessions in Week 3 of Autumn Term (after statutory Baseline Assessments are completed). These continue into Year 1. It is a very ambitious scheme that moves quickly and children are introduced to four new graphemes (sounds) and HRS words (tricky words) every week.