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Some notes on reading

 

You'll remember that we don't have an actual reading scheme in SoundWorks and we don't suggest how children should be taught to read. The class teacher takes the lead in this. Children follow the method she thinks is best and read the books she chooses for them.

But this doesn't mean that SoundWorks does nothing about reading! On the contrary, it tackles the issue with very great care, and does so by teaching and strengthening the many sub-skills that feed into the task of reading itself. This is now explained.

Letter-sound skills in reading

The foundation of all reading is understanding that the letters on a page represent the sounds in our speech. Children who have worked through the SoundWorks programme will have a very good grasp of this principle and will be well trained to pay attention to the sequence of sounds in words. This means that they're able to work out many of the new words they come across in their reading simply by using their letter-sound skills. This is an excellent achievement! It is the corner-stone of early reading and a skill that will set them well on their way.

It is not the end of the story, however. The ability to use letter-sounds in reading is a hugely important skill - but it needs to be developed in several ways and this will be the new focus.

 

It's now good to guess!

Paying close attention to the letter-sounds in words is an essential first step in learning to read but it only takes us part of the way. For example, if children carefully follow the sounds in a word like carpet, it may not snap into a word they recognise - because the 'pet' is not pronounced exactly as it is spelt. A more flexible approach is needed here combined with some sensible guessing. This will be a theme from now on.

Getting to grips with syllabes

There will be a lot of work on syllables in the new material and plenty of opportunity to practise them in reading. The ability to break words down into syllables will equip children to tackle much longer words unaided.
Extending letter-sound knowledge

There are many more sounds in English than the ones we have covered in SoundWorks. Work continues on the digraphs in the same way as before, with new digraphs introduced gradually a few at a time. Children are also taught the long vowel sounds, like the A in acorn, and instances where one letter can have two sounds, such as the letter C in cat and nice.

More work with suffixes

The importance of viewing words in terms of baseword + suffix was explained on page 207 in the Handbook. These exercises continue in a similar way, with new suffixes introduced gradually as children are able to cope with them. Examples: er, est, ly, y, en, ish.

So what can you do now?

Much of the material described above is planned but not yet written. It will become available a bit at a time over the coming months. In the meantime, there are a few lessons you can do straightaway to help your child's reading. They are not directly linked to any other part of the course and so can be taught as 'one-offs' any time you like whatever else your child happens to be doing. The lessons are listed below. The first three can be found in the One-Off Lessons section, the fourth is in the Long Vowels section.

Soft 'c'
The letter C has two sounds: the hard sound in cat, and the soft sound in nice.
A tip for reading: try both sounds - if one doesn't work, try the other.
Soft 'g'
The letter G has two sounds: the hard sound in go, and the soft sound in age.
A tip for reading: try both sounds - if one doesn't work, try the other.
'Y' at the end of a word
Useful for reading words like funny, happy, only, empty (ready soon)
Long Vowel sounds
 This is an important step on from the short vowel sounds children have used so far. Each of the 5 vowels has two sounds: short as in apple, long as in acorn.

 

Some general points

The 100 Key Words

Success in reading often comes down to the simple question of fluency. If reading is slow, it's harder to follow the meaning; if children aren't following the meaning, they're less likely to make sensible guesses; and this in turn makes the words harder to work out. So fluency is a good thing and has a very positive effect on progress in reading.

The 100 Key Words make up half the words on any page, so if these are recognised instantly, reading is speeded up considerably. This is explained on page 148 in the Handbook. It would be a good idea to have another look at how well your child is able to read the 100 Key Words. They should be recognised instantly. If not, practise the ones he's not sure of, following pages 153-5 in the Handbook. As you do this with your child, you can be sure that the work you do will have a direct bearing on his ability to read. It is time well spent!

Note: It may be useful to have extra sets of the Key Words for children to take home or use in class. We have spare sets of these available. Details can be found on the User Page.


Listening to story tapes and CDs

On quite a different note, we have to think about what children are missing by not being able to read as easily as other children ... all the stories they would have read if only they could ... all the language they'd be absorbing if only they could read the books that other children are reading ... and so on.

This is a great loss, obviously, but one that can be remedied. Reading aloud to children or arranging for them to listen to story tapes or CDs will go a long way towards filling the gap. The way in which stories are told and the language that's used is different from everyday speech. By listening to stories, children will absorb the language and ideas in just the same way as the children who read. Freed from their limitation in reading, recordings give children the opportunity to listen to the books that other children their own age are reading. They are a great leveller and bring huge rewards!