A great deal of emphasis is placed upon the teaching and learning of Literacy in the Pre-school class. The children at Once Upon A Time Pre-school engage in lots of daily Literacy activities to encourage pre-reading skills in order for them to access the Nursery’s Reading Scheme.
The children are encouraged to enjoy book handling and listening to books read by the Teacher and through audio materials – using both high quality stories, poems and non-fiction texts to suit all tastes. Listening to books being read out aloud is a key part of the daily routine and also reinforces concentration, speaking and listening skills.
The children also engage in fast paced daily Literacy activities to encourage Letter Name and Letter Sound recognition including the use of flash cards, physical ‘run around games’, ‘treasure hunts’, making letter collections, speaking and listening activities, lotto and bingo games to reinforce the letter-sound relationship.
We are fortunate to have a high quality Reading Scheme that encourages children to read with independence and enjoyment. Stories are interesting and relevant to young readers and non-fiction texts have fantastic photographs and interesting information made readily accessible to young children through graded texts.
Once children are proficient in identifying all the letter sounds of the alphabet and can use simple decoding skills, then they are given lists of Key Words to learn as sight vocabulary. These High Frequency Words are linked to the Reading Scheme and form an integral part of the Guided Reading Sessions in class. In this set up, small groups of children who are reading at a similar level engage in lots of discussion about a particular text and are taught a number of techniques including the use of picture cues, phonic strategies, the use of context and syntax.
The children are given regular, twice weekly sessions to practice the reading behaviours and strategies that they learned over the course of the year. Books that are read in class are then sent home so that children can demonstrate their skills to parents and apply these strategies and techniques to books that they have at home. Guided Reading Notes are printed in each title so that Parents understand the teaching points of the book.
With the support of Parents in this reading partnership, many children leave the Nursery with a firm foundation for reading at P1 and a love of literature.
In conclusion Our Reading Scheme offers:
- High Frequency Words that support the text.
- Regular Guided Reading sessions (twice a week)
- Books that are sent home for children to practise their reading behaviours.
- Opportunities to learn the technical vocabulary associated with books.
- Opportunities to learn different reading strategies that reduce reading by rote!
- High quality fiction and non-fiction graded texts with superb illustrations and photographs.
- Texts that appeal to all tastes – a very boy friendly program.
- Traditional fairy stories and stories and rhymes that are relevant to today’s early readers.
- Opportunities to read outside the scheme using books at a similar level.