New Word Lists

The children will no longer be receiving the high frequency word lists - but instead will be getting a new type of word list. These new lists fit very closely with the phonics approach we are using for teaching reading and spelling within school.

The children's literacy homework each week will be to work on the different activities from their word sheet.

There are 3 main parts to the new word sheet:

blending - which helps us with reading

segmenting (out loud)- which helps us with writing/spelling

segmenting (written)  - which helps us with writing/spelling/handwriting

                 Example of new word sheet 

We do not expect any children to complete their word sheet in 1 night. These activities can be returned to on a daily basis so a typical week might consist of;

Day one - blending the words

Day two - revise blending and try segmenting the words

Day 3 - Segment the words and try writing them

Day 4  - Segment the words and try writing them

Day 5 - Blend the words then segment and write them

Children will not receive their literacy(word list) home on a Thursday. They will receive it when their reading has been checked in class. We will do our best to ensure this is every week - but there may be occasions when this is not possible.

These sheets will come home in a plastic wallet - please keep all sheets together in this wallet.

You might want to fold the sheet, when the children are writing their words, so they cannot see the printed ones. They can then unfold them to check each word.

Blending  - "Blending makes us excellent readers" (video file at bottom of page)

Blending is the skill we use to help us read a word. We encourage the children at first to use their blending arm - and they press down with their finger as they sound out each phoneme (sound). When they have sounded out all the phonemes they make a sweeping gesture with their arm and say the word. The children practise this a lot in school and so should be able to demonstrate this for you. The words have the buttons under them to remind the children of this activity.

Segementing - "Segmenting makes us excellent writer" (video file at bottom of page)

Segmenting is the skill we use to help us spell a word. We encourage the children to use their segmenting hand they start with a clenched fist and raise their thumb and then each finger as they sound through the word. We intially do this out loud

"Cat ----- C  A   T"

You must be careful to make the sounds "pure" this means  we don't make the sound for c as     "K..ur" we make it short. Otherwise the children may hear the "er" sound and the word might end up as .....Cerat.

Once the children can segment a word out loud they can try writing it - segmenting as they go along.

We are using joined writing - and an example of this is in the second column of the word list.

 Phonics for Reading - an article

Hear the sounds - interactive sight that has sound clips

Answers to questions about Phonics