Balby Central Primary School

Littlemoor Lane
Balby
Doncaster
DN4 OLL
01302 321914
admin@central.doncaster.sch.uk
Reading for pleasure
Your child will benefit greatly from a love of
reading for pleasure. This can come from being
read to. Discuss what is happening in the
pictures, encourage your child to predict what
might happen next before you turn over the
page. Follow the words with your finger as you
read together.
Once your child has begun to learn the letter
sounds they will be able to pick them out in
words. They should then move on to working
out whole words through blending. Remember
tricky words will not be able to be sounded
out, and will be learned by regular reading
practise. As a result it is easier if reading
begins with story books that use simple words,
and those with a lot of repetition.
Once there is a fluency in reading, the most
important skills for a child to develop will be
comprehension skills (understanding what has
been read). This can be developed by asking
questions about a story or sentence they have
just read.
We all learn in different ways and at different
times, as children learn to walk and talk at
different times; learning to read is just the
same. It is not a race!
With patience and encouragement, reading will
be a positive experience for you and your child.
If you have any questions or need help in
supporting your child with reading please do
not hesitate to ask and we will try our best to
help.



Learning to Read Together
Being able to read is the most important skill
children will learn during their early schooling and
has far reaching implications for life-long
confidence and well being.
Schools nationally are adjusting their approach to
reading. There will be a greater emphasis on a
synthetic phonics method of teaching the letter
sounds, in a way that is fun and active. We will
have a daily phonics session lasting about 20
minutes. Children will learn how to use the letter
sounds to read and write words.
Parental support is important to all children as
they benefit from plenty of praise and
encouragement whilst learning. You should be
guided by the pace at which your child wants to
go. If interest is being lost, leave reading for a
while and then come back to it later. Not all
children find it easy to learn to blend sounds.
Regular practice will lead to fluency and
confidence in reading.
Some of the basic skills for reading and writing
are:
Knowing that in English reading is tracked
from Left to Right and top to bottom.
Learning the letter sounds
Learning letter formation
Blending sounds
Identifying sounds in words
Spelling and reading the tricky words
Learning the letter sounds
There are 44 main sounds in English, not just
the 26 letters of the alphabet.
Some sounds are written with two letters,
such as ee, th and or
We will teach each letter by its sound, not its
name. The letter a for example, should be
called a (as in ant). The letter n should be nn
(as in net). We will try not to pronounce each
letter sound with additional sounds e.g. M is
mmm not muh. This is will help in blending.
The letter names can follow later.
We will not be introducing the letters in
alphabetical order. The first group (s, a, t, p,
i, n) have been chosen because they make
more simple 2 and 3 letter words than any
other six letters. The letters b and d are
introduced in different groups to avoid
confusion. We will let you know each week
what the following weeks focus letters will
be.


Blending

Blending is the process of saying the
individual sounds in a word and then
running them together to make the word.
For example, sounding out d-o-g and
making dog. The sounds must be said
quite quickly to hear the word. It is easier
if the first sound is said slightly louder.
Some letters are represented by two
letters, such as sh. Children should
sound out the sound sh not the individual
letters (s-h). With practice they will be
able to blend the sound as one sound in
a word.

Some words in English have an irregular
spelling and cannot be read by blending,
such as said, was, and one. We
advise that these should not be sounded
out. Many of these are common words;
we will teach these as tricky words
practising them regularly. We will send
home word lists for your child to practise,
some of them may be sounded out;
others will be tricky words.