Our Lessons

We learn a new sound each day. Each sound has a rhyme and/or a picture to help us remember. 

Children then identify the new sound in a pack of previously taught sounds.

Children then read green word cards containing the sound of the day. These words are read in Fred talk and speed is built. Then they read green word cards containing previously taught sounds. These are read Fred in their heads, speed is built until they can say them fluently.

To help children to read fluently we practise speeding up word reading. These words are read Fred in their head and build speed.

Children are then challenged to read place names using Fred in their heads. These words are longer and require them to speedily decode.

Children then read sounds in nonsense words. They read these using Fred talk.

Children then learn to spell words containing their new sound as a well as previously taught sounds. We say the word we want to spell, we count out the sounds onto our 'Fred Fingers',  we pinch then sounds and then finally write them down. We then tick or fix our spellings.

We then read an exciting book that is full of the sounds we have previously learnt. On a Monday the book is introduced and we look at the vocabulary. On a Tuesday we have a our first read, we read the first 3 pages and then re-read them to build our fluency. We read with our partner. One person points to the text as the other reads and then we swap. Once we have done this our teacher reads with lots of expression. On a Wednesday we read the next 3-4 pages twice to build speed. On Thursday we read the whole book twice to work on fluency. On a Friday we read speedily and answer questions about the text.