Phonics and Early Reading
Phonics
What is ELS? Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) is our chosen phonics programme. It teaches children to read by identify the phonemes (smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words. Children experience the joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills they need to become fluent independent readers and writers.
Supporting your child with reading at home
• Only 1 in 3 children are read a bedtime story night
• Reading a bedtime story every night to your child improves their outcomes
• If your child views themselves as a ‘good reader’ when they leave Primary School they are more likely to earn a higher salary in their 40s.
Supporting your child with reading at home
• Children are only reading from books that are entirely decodable
• We only use pure sounds when decoding words (no ‘uh’ after the sound)
• We want them to practise reading their book 4 times across the week working on these skills: decode fluency expression
Pronouncing pure sounds
We must use pure sounds when we are pronouncing the sounds and supporting children in reading words. If we mispronounce these sounds we will make reading harder for our children. Please find the videos for this below where you can hear the correct pronunciation of the sounds.