Teachers' Techniques Explained!

When they're first learning to read every child goes through a similar journey:

1. Becoming aware of print and pictures in their environment, recognising some signs and symbols
2. Listening to and joining in with stories and rhymes
3. Showing an interest in books, developing and understanding story structures
4. Linking letters with sounds, hearing and saying them, recognising them in written form
5. Recognising and distinguishing between sounds
6. Blending and segmenting letters and words and recognising words on sight
7. Reading!

Remember, though, that every child is unique and will reach each step at different times. Sometimes they will progress quickly. At other times, they may take a little longer to acquire a skill. Some steps can even happen at the same time!

What happens in class?

Schools teach children in a variety of ways – as a whole class, in small groups or, when the need arises, one to one. Usually teachers will explain a specific point and then the children will practice and develop it through activities, games and follow-up work (or homework!).

Once the children are busy, teachers move around the class, helping, encouraging and praising, and working one-to-one or in groups. Often there is a class teaching assistant who helps the children with their learning too.

The method

• Children are introduced to phonics (letters and their sounds) using multi-sensory resources – that is, resources which involve touch, sight and hearing. Sometimes even taste!
• High-frequency words are introduced. These are common, tricky words such as 'when' or 'because'.
• Skills are improved and consolidated through games, activities, talking books, written work and interactive resources.
• Using big books that all the children can see, teachers will lead the reading, pointing to the text, reading and maybe questioning as they go.
• The teacher leads guided reading with smaller groups. Each child has a copy of the same book and takes turns to read to the teacher. They then all talk together about what they have read.
• Reading together one-to-one with the teacher.
• Reading independently (free choice, library books, or a reading scheme book).

Back to Top

Phonics is all about linking letters to sounds. Kids catch on quickly to the fact that spoken words are made up of different sounds (phonemes) and these can be matched to written sounds (graphemes).

Step 1: Children are taught to recognise the sounds of the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Step 2: They’ll move on to digraphs (we’re giving you all the official jargon, here!), which is when two letters make one sound, like ‘ch’ and ‘ee’.

Step 3: They start blending sounds together to make words and vice versa, splitting words into recognisable smaller units of sound. Children don’t have to know all 26 letter sounds to be able to start reading. (Think about how many two-letter and three-letter words you know.)

Step 4: Once they’re confident enough, they learn words that start or end with two consonants (a blend) they recognise, for example fr-o-g frog, cl-a-p clap, h-a-nd hand, b-e-st best and so on. The next stage is to add more sounds to the middle or end of a word, like oo, ar, oy, oi, ow, ou, air, are, or, aw, au and ore.

At the same time, teachers introduce ‘high-frequency words’, which are the 200 words your child is most likely to come across when they start reading. Some of these can be sounded out, but there are also some tricky words that need to be learnt on their own as a whole, because they are irregular and cannot be sounded out, e.g. come, was.

High frequency words:

Foundation Year
I	go	come	went	up	you	day	was
look	are	the	of	we	this	dog	me
like	going	big	she	and	they	my	see
on	away	mum	it	at	play	no	yes
for	a	dad	can	he	am	all
is	cat	get	said	to	in

Year 1 to 2
about	can't	her	many	over	then	who
after	could	here	may	people	there	will
again	did	him	more	push	these	with
an	do	his	much	pull	three	would
another	don't	home	must	put	time	your
as	dig	house	name	ran	too
back	door	how	new	saw	took
ball	down	if	next	school	tree
be	first	jump	night	seen	two
because	from	just	not	should	us
bed	girl	last	now	sister	very
been	good	laugh	off	so	want
boy	got	little	old	some	water
brother	had	live(d)	once	take	way
but	half	love	one	than	were
by	has	made	or	that	what
call(ed)	have	make	our	their	when
came	help	man	out	them	where

Plus:

• Days of the week
• Months of the year
• Numbers to twenty
• Common colour words
• Pupil's name and address
• Name and address of school

Sometimes children come to school already able to do some of this, but most find it more difficult. It takes lots and lots of practice!

Back to Top

In most schools, the letter sounds are introduced in a specific order, often alongside an action, writing pattern, sound or song which helps children remember them. Ask your child’s teacher which order they use, then practice sounds at home using a mixture of objects, picture cards and home-made letter cards. Here are a few things you can do to make letters and their sounds more memorable:

• Use magnetic letter shapes on the fridge – upper and lower case, Aa, Bb, Cc, etc
• Play bingo with letters and ask your child to say the sounds
• Peg letters to a notice board or washing line as your child learns them
• Make letters tactile – cut them out of sponge or fabric, or write them in glue and glitter
• Write letters in everyday materials – shaving foam, wet sand or dough are good fun!

Back to Top