Reception

Curriculum

Autumn 1 Curriculum overview:

Autumn 2 Curriculum overview:

Spring 1 Curriculum Overview:

Summer 1 Curriculum Overview:

Spring 2 Curriculum Overview:

Summer 2 Curriculum Overview:

Support for Early Reading

1. Unlocking Letters & Sounds

Phonics Scheme

We use Unlocking Letters and Sounds which was validated by the DfE in December 2021. We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4.

Resources:

2. Listen to the phonemes

Phase 2 Phonic Videos

Use these videos to help your child pronounce the pure phonic sounds (phoneme) correctly. Make sure you don’t add any schwaring (uh or er after a sound).

s a t p

/i/video/Phonics_s_a_t_p.mp4

g o c k

/i/video/Phonics_g_o_c_k.mp4

h b f ff

/i/video/Phonics_h_b_f_ff.mp4

i n m d

/i/video/Phonics_i_n_m_d.mp4

ck e u r

/i/video/Phonics_ck_e_u_r.mp4

l ll ss

/i/video/Phonics_l_ll_ss.mp4

3. How to teach tricky words

Tricky words

Most words in the English language can be decoded using synthetic phonics. This code is made up of 44 sounds that children learn. They learn to blend these sounds together to begin their journey of early reading. There are some words that are unusual and cannot be decoded using these 44 sounds. These words are called ‘Tricky Words’. Children are taught to learn the spellings of these words using the letter name not the letter sound.
The word ‘the’ cannot be read with their represented phonemes however, they are read using sight memory and the letter names of ‘t’, ‘h’ and ‘e’ make the word ‘the’
Below you can access a list of tricky words that the children learn in Reception:

Phase 2	Phase 3	Phase 4	Phase 5 (Y1)
I	he	said	oh
no	she	have	Mrs
the	we	like	people
to	me	so	their
go	be	do	called
into	you	some	Mr
	are	come	looked
	her	little	asked
	was	one	could
	all	were
	they	there
	my	what
		when
		out

4. Segment and blend sounds together

Segmenting and blending

Blending letter sounds (phonemes) together enables children to decode and read words. For example, h-a-t = hat. Children need to practise this so it becomes an automatic skill.
Segmenting is the opposite of blending. Segmenting a word is to break the word down into its component phonemes, e.g. hat = h-a-t. Segmenting enables children to break down words they are trying to spell.

We use the following techniques to encourage blending and segmenting:
Sound buttons help children recognise where the phoneme/sound is in a word, and which letters in the word make that sound. A dot shows that the sound is made from a single letter and a line shows that the sound is made from a digraph or trigraph. For example,

A phoneme frame supports a child, enabling them to break a word into its individual sounds and identify which letters make this sound. For example,
An instruction to the children to count the number of phonemes in a word and show the number using their fingers.

Learning to read

/i/video/page-1-video-attachment-1_2.mp4

5. Story Time

Read with a Teacher

Choose a story you would like to read with your child. Pause the video to ask you child questions. Ask your child to describe the characters feelings, why are they feeling this way? A list of questions has been provided for your support below.