Literacy News

Kindergarten have been busy building the foundations of phonics and reading. This year so far, they’ve been introduced to many individual letter sounds and are becoming increasingly skilled at identifying both the letter name and the sound it makes. This growing knowledge is now helping them take an exciting next step: sounding out and blending words to read simple sentences. 

To support this, students have been practising with phoneme fingers and sound boxes to help them break words into their individual sounds before blending them back together. These tools make early reading feel concrete, fun, and empowering.

Alongside this, students have also begun learning tricky words, which are words that cannot be sounded out using regular phonics. Recognising these words by sight helps children read more smoothly and confidently when they encounter them in texts. Some of the tricky words introduced so far include the, my, you, and is.

It’s been wonderful to see students using their new skills with enthusiasm and pride as they begin their reading journey.