Phonics and Early Reading
Your child will begin to learn to read using phonics as soon as they have settled into school. On this page, you will find an overview of the first 3 phases of their learning, as well as useful hints and tips to use at home to help support your child's learning.
At Harris, ‘Red Rose Letters and Sounds’ is the chosen accredited programme used to teach phonics, tricky words, high frequency words and to support early reading development. The ‘Red Rose Letters and Sounds’ programme is split into 5 Phases, which are taught daily from EYFS to Year 1.
In EYFS and Year 1, your child will be taught phonics every day. Alongside the teaching of phonics, every child will be provided with daily opportunities to apply their phonic knowledge and skills in reading and spelling in areas of continuous provision.
Home Readers
The books your children will bring home to read are closely matched to the phonic sounds and tricky words they have been taught. The number on the top of the book is purely for organisational purposes. EYFS children will begin to bring ‘home-readers’ home once they are able to independently blend CVC words containing the sounds they have been taught. EYFS children will bring home 2 decodable books each week and a library book. Our book changing day for ‘Home Readers’ will be on Tuesday. Library book changing day is either on a Thursday or a Friday - your child's day can be found in the inside of their Reading Record.
How to help your child
- Daily reading at home – even just a little bit. Record in Reading Records.
- Pronunciation – no schwaring! –for a video of the correct pronunciation, please click here or a video can be found at the bottom of this page.
- Out and about spotting sounds
- Read to them – they don’t always have to read to you.
- Sit somewhere quiet.
- Have fun!!
Below are some useful files to support phonics.
