Foundation Stage - Reading

Within the Foundation Stage, the development of phonological, orthographic and morphemic awareness are essential prerequisites of both reading, spelling and writing. 

Phonological awareness can be a predictor of later reading achievement and phonemic awareness can develop as a result of learning to read.

The beginning reading programme should ensure that all sources of knowledge are taught simultaneously and from the start of learning to aid efficient memory storage and retrieval:

  • Phonological
  • Orthographic
  • Morphemic
  • Semantic
  • Syntactic

A pupil who is displaying signs of significant literacy difficulties in reading and requires substantial repetition and overlearning should be identified and supported as early as possible. A cumulative, structured, sequential, multisensory, phonics-based programme of learning should be introduced, which teaches phonics at the alphabetic and orthographic level alongside a reading programmes which ensures all of the reading skills are developed at a compatible level, taking account of the significance of working memory and orthographic processing difficulties. 

Early indicators of reading difficulties in the Foundation Stage
  • Unable to generate or identify rhyming words
  • Unsure of sounds that letters represent
  • Has difficulty decoding single words
  • Reading difficulties are persistent particularly with phonological processing
  • Unsure of familiar words
  • Confuses letters such as b / d and p / q
  • Confuses words, such as, ‘of’, and, ‘for’
  • Misreads and omits words when reading
  • Reading is weak compared to peers
  • Shows frustration when it comes to reading tasks
  • Unable to retain reading skills previously learned
  • Difficulties with sequencing and retaining sequences
  • Continues to sound out words after many exposures
  • Slow word perception and reading 
Phonological Awareness difficulties and the importance of teaching phonics at all four levels

Phonological Awareness refers to awareness of not just smaller units of sound in the spoken word, (phoneme) but the larger units of sound; syllables and intra-syllabic units (onset and rime). 

Phonological awareness can be a predictor of later reading achievement and phonemic awareness can develop as a result of learning to read. A skilled reader sounds out a word a few times and remembers it so if the word appears again in text, it will be recognised and the associated sounds and meaning activated. A pupil displaying learning difficulties may have a poor working memory and a weakness in the phonological processor and may not be able to hear, manipulate and unitise phonemes in his / her head. Or the pupil may have a weakness in orthographic processing (recall of patterns in words) which impacts on his / her visual memory of words. Partial or incomplete images are stored in memory and if the word is seen again, it may not be recognised as being familiar. Pupils with these difficulties need a secure visual memory of ‘anchor words’ such as, ‘it’, ‘in’ and ‘an’ to enable the development of phonemic awareness. Most pupils learn implicitly as they read, however a pupil with a phonological or orthographic processing difficulty will require explicit teaching in recognising whole words as he / she begins to read. Working memory difficulties impact on a pupil being able to hold and manipulate more than two phonemes in memory, therefore onset and rime patterns scaffold learning as there are fewer sounds to recall in each chunk of the word.

Reading, phonological awareness, phonics and spelling are interconnected and therefore best practice indicates the need to provide an integrated system of teaching phonics at the phoneme / grapheme, syllable, onset and rime and whole word level is essential. The pupil can learn to link the visual (orthographic) and auditory (phonological) memory of key words within a structured, cumulative, sequential, multisensory and phonics-based approach, with new learning carefully controlled to ensure that the pupil is enabled to experience success working within the structure of known words and sounds. 

The alphabet arc is a resource which scaffolds the pupil’s learning, as he / she manipulates cvc words with similar rime patterns:

The pupil can, with continual rehearsal, develop metacognitive skills which they can then apply to the manipulation of ccvc / cvcc and other words with similar rime patterns. The teacher first models how to change initial and final sounds / blends and the pupil continues to apply this skill in a scaffolded learning environment. For pupils with literacy difficulties the vowel sound is best learned when linked to the rime of the word, for example, hat, hot, hit.  A pupil with a visual impairment may find it difficult to see how the mouth is articulated when pronouncing the sounds and so will need additional practice of learning the sounds through incorporating listening and rhyming activities, letter identification games and movement songs / activities.

If a pupil experiences a problem with the sounds in the language and difficulty following instructions when not embedded in a routine, he / she may have a Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and can also be scaffolded through a sequential, cumulative, structured, multisensory phonics-based approach. 

Impact on Reading Recommendations for Reasonable Adjustments

The pupil is not recognising the difference between a word and a sentence

 

  • Teach ‘anchor words’ to enable the pupil to recognise the difference between a word and a sentence. Then model a sentence
  • Introduce phonics at the whole word level - teach sight words which will provide an ‘anchor’ for future learning, for example, ‘an’, ‘it’, ‘at’, ‘in’ 
  • Develop rapid word recognition (flash cards, matching games)
  • Use the ‘Listen, Search, Select, Write’ Strategy:
    • The teacher reads 3 or 4 words - cat, hat, sat, mat 
    • The pupil searches across 4 words to identify the word the teacher has said
    • The pupil selects the word said by the teacher 
    • The pupil writes the word down 
  • Activities to reinforce word recognition:
    • Select correct words in cloze procedure passage
    • Complete jumbled sentences
    • Progress to writing a sentence under the picture
  • Provide opportunities to develop sentence recognition and sentence structure - Model a complete sentence and explicitly teach about use of punctuation and the fact that the sentence must make sense
  • Provide sequencing activities, depending on ability of pupil:
    • Provide 3 - 7 pictures, demonstrating a story sequence and ask the pupil to organise
    • Provide 3 - 5 sequence sentence strips. Ask the pupil to organise in order
    • Play punctuation games - Zip, Zap, Boom:
    • The teacher calls out a sentence
    • The pupil is given a word to represent the punctuation mark, for example, the first pupil is given the word ‘Zip’ for a question mark, another pupil is given the word ’Zap’ for an exclamation mark and the last pupil is given the word ‘Boom’ for a full stop
    • The pupil must stand up if they think the sentence needs a question mark, exclamation mark or full stop and shout the symbol name
  • Take photographs of a role-play or puppet show:
    • Ask the pupil to identify the main parts and characters
    • Ask the pupil to sequence the photographs and retell the events
    • Focus on forming sentences

Pupil is unable to decode phonetically regular words

 

Pupil is guessing words in a sentence

 

The pupil is relying only on the picture cue to attempt a word and is not looking at the initial letter or scanning across the word for familiar sounds

 

Pupil is not pointing at words and tracking across a sentence

 

  • Reading in Structure (words): Explain that onset is everything to the vowel and rime is the vowel to the end. Work only with the sounds and words learned to date within a structured phonics-based programme. The pupil will sort words into groups according to where he / she hears the new sound, for example:
  • Reading in Structure (sentences) - the pupil reads prepared sentences and / or matches sentences to pictures (the pupil only reads sentences containing letters, sounds and concepts explicitly taught to date):
    EA Guidance Video: Reading in Structure - Sentences (3:06 mins)
  • This approach provides in-built success. Explain onset is everything before the vowel and rime is the vowel to the end

  • Provide opportunities for reading of continuous text in structure and encourage discussion of text, generalising and scanning for key information:

    EA Guidance Video: Reading Consolidation Exercise (4:45 mins)

  • Teach reading strategies:
    • Use grapheme / phoneme knowledge, letter pattern knowledge and knowledge of whole words
    • Break a word into syllables
    • Use analogy and link to prior knowledge of word patterns
    • Read ahead to check the sentence makes sense

The pupil may have difficulties with counting syllables in a word

 

  • Identifying syllables - (a clap / beat in a word. This can be demonstrated by putting your hand under your chin to feel when the chin drops)
  • Count syllables through games: 
    • Chin bumps
    • Clapping
    • Punch / stamp / kick it out
A pupil may be unaware of the grammatical structure of a simple sentence, this can impact on reading fluency
  • Provide jumbled sentences and cloze procedures to enable the pupil to develop awareness of key words while also learning about grammar and structure of a sentence (syntactic knowledge)

A pupil may need to be explicitly taught that words carry information. This can be modelled by questioning

A pupil may have difficulties understanding what a question is and what the response should be

The pupil may have a limited knowledge of word meanings

  • Ask questions to develop the pupil’s understanding of words (semantic knowledge):
    • Teach some key words 
    • Model them being used in sentences 
    • Ask questions such as, “What is Pam holding in her hand?”
    • Link words to pictures

Pupil is unable to identify the sounds in words making it difficult to manipulate or blend them

 

Sounds, especially vowel sounds are not pronounced correctly, decoding is incorrect for example reads ‘jug’ for ‘jog’

 

  • Use sound boxes to map individual sounds and focus on one specific sound pattern at a time (a significant minority of pupils with working memory, orthographic processing or specific language difficulties may require a focus on whole word reading and onset and rime in order to begin to identify sounds in sequence)
  • Introduce alphabetic phonics - provide opportunities for a high degree of overlearning of letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). Use the alphabet arc and flashcards as resources to support learning:
    EA Guidance Video: Introduce the flashcard and flashcard routine (1:03 mins)
  • Introduce phonics at the onset and rime level as early as possible
  • Introduce activities for the pupil to practise blending and segmenting the phonemes in cvc words, for example, make the word ‘at’ using the alphabet arc. Ask the pupil to change the word ‘at’ to ‘fat’ and ‘cat’ and ‘sat’, change ‘bin’ to ‘pin’, change ‘pin’ to ‘pit’ 
    Teacher and Pupil Printable: Anchor Chart
  • Teach how to manipulate the initial phoneme bin to tin to win to chin
  • Teach the vowel sound attached to a rime
  • , for example, /a/ in ‘fat’, /i/ in ‘bin’
  •  Do not teach very similar vowel sounds close together, for example, /e/ is best separated from /a/ and /i/
  • The pupil will benefit from following a cumulative, structured, sequential, multisensory approach to word patterns, in a spelling programme:
    • Teach cvc words with a focus on medial vowel
    • Teach blend beginnings or consonant blends - /fl/, /gl/, /cl/
    • Teach blend endings-/st/, /lt/, /sk/, /lk/, /ct/, /lp/
    • Teach consonant digraphs - /sh/, /ch/, /th/
  • Provide opportunities for the pupil to practise connected phonation orally with VC words then progress to CVC words, do not break the speech flow / stretching the sound / continuous blending (for example, ‘aamm’ for am, ‘ssuunn’ for sun). The pupil can run his / her finger beneath each letter while saying the sound without stopping:
    EA Guidance Video: Phonemic Awareness (3:00 mins)
  • Reading in Structure (words) - working only with the sounds and words learned to date within a structured phonics-based programme (words). Explain that onset is everything up to the vowel and rime is everything from the vowel to the end. The pupil will sort words into groups according to where he / she hears the new sound, for example:
    • Ship, shot, shin
    • Rush, mash, crush

EA Guidance Video: Reading in structure - single words (3:13 mins)

The pupil may have difficulty in discriminating between final consonant sounds such as /d/ or /t/, for example reads ‘cot’ for ‘cod’

 

The pupil may not be able to identify words that rhyme

  • Identify same and different speech sounds, such as, are /d/ and /t/ same or different? 
    • Over pronounce target sounds when teaching 
    • Use Sounds Articulation Cue Cards to practise mouth formation and sound production 
    • Practice segmenting using a tapping method where the pupil smoothly runs his / her thumb under each fingertip used to represent the phonemes in a word
  • Teach rhyming words, for example, ‘mop’ or ‘mat’ -same or different? ‘Cat’ and ‘hat’ same or different?
  • Introduce musical and rhyme-based activities

The pupil’s reading lacks fluency and accuracy

 

  • Use shared reading to explore directionality, return sweep, title and blurb at the back of the book
  • Model through guided reading or work one to one with the pupil to look at pictures and activate prior knowledge of the context of the story
  • Read stories that use alliteration and stress sounds as you read 
  • Provide levelled reading books to integrate all the skills required for reading (semantic knowledge, syntax, phonology, morphemic and orthographic knowledge). This integrated approach ensures the pupil does not rely on only one strategy when unable to read a word but instead he / she draws on the full range of sources of knowledge that are necessary for reading
  • Take a story and make it into a play to motivate and encourage the pupil to act it out and then read it 
  • Give the pupil a choice over the book he / she would like to read (provide appropriate ability level)
  • Assess retention of phonetically regular words by use of dictated sentences. Sentences in structure provide a context for applying the sounds taught each week:
    EA Guidance Video: Dictation Routine (9:02 mins)
    Teacher Guidance: Dictation Routine
  • Introduce decodable books / sentences when working in structure (avoid over-reliance, as the pupil may learn to focus on a decoding strategy as the only means of identifying a word. For a significant minority of pupils this entrenches his / her specific difficulty) 
  • An over-emphasis on decodable text may also impact on motivation for reading while reducing opportunities to develop comprehension through exposure to rich and varied vocabulary
  • Provide a reading ruler if the pupil loses his / her place while reading:
  • Provide visual reminders of reading strategies:
    • Use grapheme / phoneme knowledge
    • Use context to clarify word meaning
    • Think of syntactic knowledge - does what you have read sound like a proper sentence
  • Encourage the pupil to apply his / her knowledge of vocabulary (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and use visualisation techniques to aid comprehension: 
    • The pupil can create his / her own read aloud books or a short story using fluency and expression to deliver to peers
    • The pupil can listen to a sentence read without expression and discuss correct intonation and punctuation required: 
      Teacher Guidance: Reading Fluency
Visual Processing and Tracking Difficulties

Visual processing refers to how the brain processes and interprets visual information. Visual tracking is how the eyes follow the visual information to interpret it. To have a visual processing and tracking difficulty is when the eyes are unable to feedback the visual information accurately such as identifying information from pictures or reading text. It may focus on difficulties with saccadic eye movements where the pupil experiences difficulty reading smoothly ‘through’ individual words or where there appears to be difficulty with the smooth movement of eyes while reading along lines of text. Other difficulties may involve the ability of eyes to ‘team’ (work together with the same point of focus) while reading text. Where these types of difficulties are apparent, referral to an optician is always advised.

Impact on Reading Recommendations for Reasonable Adjustments 

The pupil may have a difficulty in understanding left to right orientation 

 

The pupil may struggle to learn new vocabulary

 

  • Model directionality in the reading book and during guided reading encourage the pupil to finger point to each word. Highlight words and then sentences to show the difference
  • Introduce Clicker 8 - ‘sentence sets’ to model directionality and use of punctuation
  • Explicitly explain any new vocabulary and provide a visual as you introduce the word
  • Use Clicker 8 to create ‘word banks’ and alphabetically organise topic words
  • Reading in Structure (words) - Explain that onset is everything to the vowel and rime is the vowel to the end. Work only with the sounds and words learned to date within a structured phonics-based programme. The pupil will sort words into groups according to where he / she hears the new sound, for example:
    • Ship, shot, shin
    • Rush,  mash, crush

EA Guidance Video: Reading in structure - single words (3:13 mins)

The pupil may lose his / her place easily or skip a line 
  • Use a reading ruler as a guide until reading fluency develops:
The pupil may have difficulty discriminating between a word and a sentence
  • Model a simple sentence, such as, ‘The fat cat had a hat’
  • Explicitly explain the difference between a word and a sentence

The pupil may be unable to remember what particular letters look like, recall High Frequency Words (HFWs) or topic words

 

Sounds and letters mixed up when decoding (b/d/, p/q/)

  • Have tabletop prompt cards - for the pupil during writing activities:
    • Target sounds 
    • Letter names
    • High Frequency Words (HFWs)
    • Topic words
  • Mnemonics will provide a memory prompt on directionality of letters:
    Printable Resource: Letter Orientation Prompt

Ensure these mnemonics are explicitly explained. Do not assume prior knowledge has been linked. English readers, read letters left-right across the page. A pupil may be confused as the ball could sit on either side of the bat. Explain that you draw the bat first and then the ball (left to right).

  • Teach the pupil that:
    • Thumbs up for ‘b’ and ‘d’, thumbs down ‘p’ and ‘q’
    • Explain that in the alphabet arc Mr ‘b’ comes first and he must face Mr ‘d’ who comes after ‘c’, as he wants to chat’; ‘b’ and ‘d’ stare at each other and poor ‘c’ is stuck in the middle. Then comes Mr ‘p’ who needs to face Mr ‘q’ also to chat. The teacher can model this using his / her thumbs and demonstrate the 2 letters chatting: 

Confuses easy words, for example, ‘a,’ ‘in,’ ‘the,’ ‘it’

 

Omits ‘little’ words, like ‘in’ and ‘on. Omits affixes such as ‘s’ 

 

The pupil may add in ‘little’ words

 

  • Provide visual tracking activities and ask the pupil to find and select a specific key word
  • Practice Listen, Search, Select, Write Strategy:
    • The teacher reads 3 or 4 words - cat, hat, sat, mat 
    • The pupil listens to the words
    • The pupil searches across 4 words to identify the word the teacher has said
    • The pupil selects the word said by the teacher 
    • The pupil writes the word down 
  • Activities to reinforce word recognition:
    • Select correct words in cloze procedure passage
    • Complete jumbled sentences
    • Progress to writing a sentence under the picture
  • Visual processing games: 
    • Spot the difference
    • Kim’s Game
    • Letter Bingo, Letter Sorting, Letter Grid Searches
    • Mazes, Simon Says
    • Complete the picture, Feely Bags with Letter Shapes
    • Same or Different, What’s Wrong Pictures? 

The pupil may have a difficulty with recognising word patterns 

 

The pupil may have a difficulty remembering a sequence of letters 

 

He / she may transpose letters when reading, such as reading ‘saw’ for ‘was’ or ‘stop’ for ‘spot’ 

 

  • Provide the pupil with activities to practise tracing and copying symbols. Use laminated card with target letters colour coded to finger trace 
  • The following procedure is useful for developing a pupil’s knowledge of the position of a sound in a word - the  (beginning, middle, end) prompt card:
  • Provide the pupil with opportunities to practise word building with letter tiles (Bananagrams or Scrabble), Velcro word mapping boards

 

Working Memory Difficulties

To be a good reader, strong visual and verbal working memory skills are beneficial. Pupils with poor working memory capacity find decoding of words mentally exhausting. They find it challenging to keep the relevant speech sounds long enough ‘in mind’ to blend them, and in doing so decode the word. They may struggle to hold all the words in their mind to read and understand a sentence. Good readers only require several exposures to a word before they can read it automatically. However, pupils with visual working memory difficulties cannot recognise words quickly despite frequent exposure to the words. This is known as ‘frequency insensitivity.’

Impact on ReadingRecommendations for Reasonable Adjustments 

The pupil may have difficulty with word recognition of regular cvc / ccvc words

 

The pupil struggles to hear sounds in sequence within a cvc and cvcc word

 

 

 

 

The pupil may have slow recall of High Frequency Words

 

  • Teach HFWs using Look, Visualise, Say, Cover, Write and Check (LVSCWC) Method - this strategy strengthens the visual and movement memory, the verbalisation of letter names will provide reinforcement through auditory memory, for example naming the letters before writing a word down:
    • Look - Write the word for the pupil in the grid, ask the pupil to look at the word for about 10 seconds 
    • Visualise - Look at the size, shape, position / orientation of each letter in the word
    • Say the word - pupil says the word (combining his / her auditory memory with the visual memory)
    • Cover the word
    • Write the word from memory (combining the kinaesthetic channel and muscle memory)
    • Ask the pupil to say each letter name aloud as he / she writes it 
    • Check his / her word against the correctly written word
    • If incorrect, notice the errors and repeat the procedure
  • Use Read, Build and Write mats:
    • The teacher shows the word to the pupil
    • The pupil says the word
    • The pupil builds the word using magnetic letters
    • The pupil writes the word (cursive handwriting can help develop a grapho-motor memory of the word)
  • Develop repetitive routines - use of flash cards for high frequency words, blending lines for decodable words with same sound / letter pattern
  • Oral Modelling of the HFW:
    • Verbalise the word and use in a sentence.
    • Write the spoken sentence on the reverse of a flashcard
    • Pupil draws a picture above the sentence
    • Pupil holds flashcard, looks at the keyword on front, reads the word and tries to recall the sentence on the back (pupils with memory difficulties may find the recall stage very difficult)
    • Pupil turns card over to check and remind himself / herself of the sentence
    • Daily practice of routines provides overlearning and develops automaticity
The pupil may have difficulty storing and retrieving grapheme / phoneme knowledge

The pupil’s sensitivity to orthographic patterns may be limited (letter patterns)

 

He / she may have difficulty unitising phonemes in a word

 

He / she may have difficulty specifically with the vowel sound in words

  • Teach the pupil how to chunk beginning sounds, for example, /st/, /sp/, /st/
  • Chunk sounds into onset and rime with the vowel attached to the rime, for example, /st/-/amp/ rather than sounding out each phoneme,

 /s/-/t/-/a/-/m/-/p/

  • Encourage the pupil to use highlighters to explicitly colour code orthographic patterns in words
  • Teach the vowel sound attached to the rime of a word, for example, ‘at’, ‘it’

The pupil’s reading fluency is effortful and not automatic

 

Vocabulary knowledge is limited

 

 

 

 

  • Teach reading strategies and have visuals representing the strategies:
    • Read ahead in the sentence
    • Use the picture
    • Look across a word
    • Look at initial sound
    • Do you recognise any other sounds
    • Notice the punctuation
  • Articulatory verbal rehearsal helps maintain words in working memory to transfer to long-term memory. It develops vocabulary knowledge
  • Encourage the pupil to apply knowledge of nouns, verbs and adjectives to his / her reading
  • Teach the pupil visualisation to help with comprehension
  • Try to link new vocabulary / themes with autobiographic memory- memory linked to the pupil’s previous experiences
  • The pupil can create his / her own read aloud books or a short story and focus on using fluency and expression to deliver to peers
  • The pupil can listen to a sentence read without expression and discuss correct intonation and punctuation required: 
    Teacher Guidance: Reading Fluency

The pupil may struggle to hold all the words read in memory long enough to extract the meaning of a text. As a result, he / she loses interest and disengages from reading

 

  • Introduce drama to enable the pupil to participate and understand content of a story
  • Provide audiobooks to engage the pupil
  • Provide comic strip cards and encourage the pupil to quickly record phases of the story in pictures as they read in smaller chunks of text
Slow processing speed difficulties

Slow processing speed is when pupils need additional time to take in, understand and respond to visual or oral information. Slow processing speed difficulties can be apparent in pupils with co-occurring difficulties, such as ADHD and DLD and this will impact on their ability to read with automaticity.

Impact on Reading Recommended for Reasonable Adjustments

The pupil may read slowly and have little expression

 

Reading takes longer due to poor sight vocabulary and slow decoding of words

  • Develop sight word recognition by incorporating it into a structured intervention programme. Provide for overlearning to avoid over-reliance on decoding. The pupil can learn by using multisensory activities to read High Frequency Words with automaticity 
  • Allow the pupil additional time using prompts such as “Try that again” or “Can you find a pattern you know?”
  • Model reading with expression

The pupil may attempt to sound out every phoneme even when he / she recognises the word on sight

 

  • Scaffold and develop whole word reading skillsto avoid over-reliance on decoding 
  • Use word finding and word retrieval activities:
    • Rapid naming from categories
    • Fill in missing word in phrase 
  • Play ‘opposites’ games
  • The pupil can read short phrases and target words - encourage the pupil to keep his / her voice on and not to stop between sounds
  • Record the pupil’s reading and play it back so they are more conscious of the need to read more fluency

The pupil may have word finding difficulties when responding to a comprehension question 

 

He / she may struggle to write down his / her answer but may understand the content

 

  • Encourage repeated reading or choral reading (reading alongside the pupil) to develop comprehension
  • Use wordless books to allow the pupil to draw a picture after reading to show his / her understanding 
    Teacher Guidance: Wordless Picture Books
  • Allow different methods of recording answers, for example, bullet points and shopping list style answers
  • Use a highlighter and practice identifying key words in comprehension questions to support effective skimming and scanning 

The pupil’s attention may be impacted

 

  • Provide audiobooks to support reading
  • Provide frequent breaks during reading activities
  • Provide encouragement and praise
  • Reduce quantity of work to be completed

 

Orthographic difficulties

Orthography is the established spelling or representation of words in a written language (this includes spelling, punctuation, capitalization). Orthographic Knowledge is knowledge of clusters of letters that represent sounds blended as units. This can be at onset and rime, syllable or whole word level. Orthographic mapping is a mental process and is the ability to permanently store words to be retrieved automatically (immediately and effortlessly) from memory. To have orthographic difficulties will impact on a pupil’s ability to recognise words and to read fluently. This will also impact on spelling and writing.

Impact on Reading Recommendations for Reasonable Adjustments

The pupil may have a difficulty in recognising patterns in words and is insensitive to these words in reading and spelling 

 

  • Teach ‘anchor words’ – for example, ‘it’, ‘an’ and ‘at’
  • Practice Listen, Search, Select, Write Strategy (LSSW):
    • The teacher reads 3 or 4 words - cat, hat, sat, mat 
    • The pupil listens to the words
    • The pupil searches across 4 words to identify the word the teacher has said
    • The pupil selects the word said by the teacher 
    • The pupil writes the word down 
  • Activities to reinforce word recognition:
    • Select correct words in cloze procedure passage
    • Complete jumbled sentences
    • Progress to writing a sentence under the picture
  • Explicitly teach common word patterns to develop automaticity in recognising familiar patterns 
  • Play matching / word sorting / memory games for word patterns that focus on same orthographic pattern

Difficulty in retaining High Frequency Words / Sight words 

 

Guesses simple words 

  • Daily HFW flashcard routine
  • Teach 3 / 4 HFWs each week (dependent on pupil’s ability)
  • Revisit what are assumed ‘known’ words regularly to check for retention
  • Repeated reading of a text to develop automatic word recognition
  • Provide visual reminders of reading strategies:
    • Use grapheme / phoneme knowledge
    • Use context to clarify word meaning
    • Think of syntactic knowledge - does what you have read sound like a proper sentence

Over-reliance on decoding even when it is apparent, he / she knows several of the key words

 

  • Daily flash card routine for high frequency words
  • Reading short sentences in structure, using only the words and sounds taught so far in a structured phonics programme
  • Encourage the pupil to read known words as sight words with fluency and accuracy
  • Record the pupil’s reading and play it back so they are more conscious of the need to read more fluency.
The pupil may be unable to proficiently connect phonemes in the spoken word to graphemes in the written form 
  • Link target sounds to words and concrete elements in the pupil’s environment to provide memory hooks which may support retention – names of friends and family; objects in the classroom; animals; favourite things 
  • Daily phoneme / grapheme activities to consolidate knowledge of each letter and its correspondent sound:
    EA Guidance Video: Introduce the flashcard and flashcard routine (1:03 mins)
  • The pupil will benefit from following a structured, cumulative, sequential, multisensory and phonics-based approach to word patterns, in a spelling programme:
    • Teach cvc words with a focus on the medial vowel
    • Teach blend beginnings or consonant blends - /fl/, /gl/, /cl/
    • Teach blend endings - /st/, /lt/, /sk/, /lk/, /ct/, /lp/
    • Teach consonant digraphs-/sh/, /ch/, /th/
  • Ensure consistent and repetitive learning routines for introducing new sounds and spellings, for example, Simultaneous Oral Spelling and Dictated Sentences
The pupil may frequently misread the order of letters and read inaccurately, for example ‘form’ for ‘from’

  • Provide a reading ruler if the pupil loses his / her place while reading:             

    Reading ruler
  • Ask the pupil to try that word again, looking across the word carefully from left to right

 

Word recognition difficulties

Sight words are words that pupils can read unconsciously and effortlessly without sounding out. High frequency words (HFWs) are words that appear often in a text and should be read automatically once a pupil can read them immediately ‘on sight’ they become sight words. There are HFWs that can easily be decoded, some that contain phonetically decodable parts and some that are completely irregular and cannot be phonetically decoded. Very often, pupils with literacy difficulties will find learning HFWs a struggle as the words tend to be abstract or phonetically irregular and they find it difficult to attach meaning to such words. 

Impact on Reading Recommendations for Reasonable Adjustments

The pupil finds it difficult to learn sight words

 

He / she guesses the word  

 

The pupil misreads HFWs persistently

 

 

 

  • Teach the high frequency word routine - Look, Visualise, Say, Cover, Write and Check (LVSCWC) Method. This strategy strengthens the visual and movement memory. The verbalisation of letter names will provide reinforcement through auditory memory: 
    • Look - Write the word for the pupil in the grid, ask the pupil to look at the word for about 10 seconds 
    • Visualise - Look at the size, shape, position / orientation of each letter in the word
    • Say the word - pupil says the word (combining his / her auditory memory with the visual memory)
    • Cover the word
    • Write the word from memory (combining the kinaesthetic channel and muscle memory)
    • Have the pupil say each letter name aloud as he / she writes it
    • Check his / her word against the correctly written word
    • If incorrect, notice the errors and repeat the procedure 
  • Heart words may also be used - Highlight the tricky bits in colour, such as, was. Teach the irregular part of the HFW that is to be learned by heart and draw a heart below this part. Help the pupil to understand why this part of the word is tricky, for example, ‘the letters that we see, in this part of the word do not match the sounds that we know’ (permanently irregular words). For temporarily irregular words, ‘the letters that we see, in this part of the word do not match the sounds that we know - at this point’: 
    HFW & Heart Words Organised Phonetically
    EA Guidance Video: Heart words and Irregular HFWs (8:03 mins)
  • Tabletop writing with fingers
  • Use Read, Build and Write mats:
    • The teacher shows the word to the pupil
    • The pupil says the word
    • The pupil builds the word using magnetic letters
    • The pupil writes the word (cursive handwriting can help develop a grapho-motor memory of the word):
  • Use I do, we do, you do approach to read the words, develop the pupil’s independence through scaffolded support:
    • Model how to do it
    • Guided practice - pupil tries it out (with support)
    • Pupil does it independently 
A pupil may be unable to retain High Frequency Words taught in the previous lessons
  • Oral modelling of the HFW:
    • Verbalise the word and use in a sentence.
    • Write the spoken sentence on the reverse of a flashcard
    • Pupil draws a picture above the sentence
    • Pupil holds flashcard, looks at the keyword on front, reads the word and tries to recall the sentence on the back (pupils with memory difficulties may find the recall stage very difficult)
    • Turns card over to check and remind himself of the sentence
  • Daily practice of routines provides overlearning and develops automaticity
  • Create multisensory sight words on cards with range of textured materials
  • Supplement with memory games / puzzles, wordsearches, table-top games and online games and apps) to practise reading HFW 
  • Teach spelling rules:
    • The doubling rule: When a word has one vowel before a single consonant, double the consonant before adding the ending. 

Teacher Guidance: Advice for Teachers on Spelling Rules

The pupil may struggle to recall what a specific letter looks like, HFW or topic word

 

The pupil may have visual processing difficulties which will lead to further confusions with letters, such as, ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘p’, ‘q’ 

  • Have tabletop prompt cards - for the pupil during writing activities:
    • Target sounds 
    • Letter names
    • High Frequency Words (HFWs)
    • Topic words
  • Mnemonics will provide a memory prompt on directionality of letters:
    Printable Resource: Letter Orientation Prompt

Ensure these mnemonicsare explicitly explained. Do not assume prior knowledge has been linked. English readers, read letters left-right across the page. A pupil may be confused as the ball could sit on either side of the bat. Explain that you draw the bat first and then the ball (left to right).

  • Thumbs up for ‘b’ and ‘d’, thumbs down ‘p’ and ‘q’
  • Explain that in the alphabet arc Mr ‘b’ comes first and he must face Mr ‘d’ who comes after ‘c’, as he wants to chat’; ‘b’ and ‘d’ stare at each other and poor ‘c’ is stuck in the middle. Then, comes Mr ‘p’ who needs to face Mr ‘q’ also to chat. The teacher can model this using his / her thumbs and demonstrate the 2 letters chatting: 
Reading comprehension difficulties

Reading comprehension is strongly linked to listening (oral vocabulary) and understanding (decoding words). As pupils are introduced to a rich vocabulary environment, opportunities to read and tell stories, poems and rhymes are central to developing a pupils’ vocabulary, which will impact on their later reading, spelling and writing skills. Pupils with literacy difficulties very often are so focused on decoding the word they do not ‘take-in’ the meaning of the word / sentence or short story. It is important to check that pupils with literacy difficulties, co-occurring difficulties or newcomer pupils understand what they are reading at a more meaningful level. The pupil needs to develop:

  1. Fluency 
  2. Vocabulary Knowledge
  3. Understanding of Sentence Structure 
  4. Ability to reason, read between the lines 
  5. Knowledge of strategies that assist in retention of the information read and interpretation of its meaning 
Impact on Reading Recommendations for Reasonable Adjustments

The pupil may have difficulty with word recognition (retrieving from memory) which impacts on comprehension of the text 

 

He / she may have word finding difficulties when answering questions about a text

 

 

 

  • Matching word and picture games
  • Reading in Structure (words) - Explain that onset is everything to the vowel and rime is the vowel to the end. Work only with the sounds and words learned to date within a structured phonics-based programme. The pupil will sort words into groups according to where he / she hears the new sound, for example:
    • Ship, shot, shin
    • Rush, mash, crush

EA Guidance Video: Reading in structure - single words (3:13 mins)

  • Reading in Structure (sentences) - the pupil matches sentences to pictures, the pupil only reads sentences containing letters, sounds and concepts explicitly taught to date:
    EA Guidance Video: Reading in Structure - Sentences (3:06 mins)
  • This approach provides in-built success
  • Explain onset is everything before the vowel and rime is the vowel to the end
  • Provide opportunities for reading of continuous text in structure and encourage discussion of text, generalising and scanning for key information:
    EA Guidance Video: Reading Consolidation Exercise (4:45 mins)
  • Clarification games in pairs (pupils have words in bold in a sentence, in groups the pupil asks what each word means)
  • Daily high frequency flash card routine 
  • Provide opportunities for the pupil to practise word association activities:
    • The teacher shows the pictures
  • The teacher asks the pupil to complete the association, for turtle, snail, tree and elephant – “What do they have in common? “
  • Provide opportunities for the pupil to practise categorisation activities - show 3 images such as, hammer, drill, saw (tools), ear, eye, nose (found on face) 
  • Provide opportunities for the pupil to practise word-finding activities such as Who / What am I? (using categories):
    • I am a member of your family and I rhyme with other (brother or mother)  
    • I live in the woods and I rhyme with socks (fox)

The pupil may read words proficiently but have difficulty understanding the text

 

The pupil may have difficulty understanding ideas of a story 

  • Daily practice of listening to short stories and the pupil then answers 3 questions, for example:
    On Friday, 3 boys went ice-skating. One fell and broke his left leg. He went to hospital on Sunday: 
    • Where did the boys go on Friday?
    • How many boys were there?
    • What day did they go to the hospital? 
    • During sentence reading, have pupil explain in own words what it was about 
  • After reading short passage / short text, have pupil draw a picture to explain what the text was about
  • The pupil can complete sequencing activities - cut and stick 3 pictures and progress to 6 / 8 pictures

A pupil may have a limited vocabulary knowledge which makes comprehension of text very difficult

 

A pupil may have a limited range of vocabulary and oral language may be underdeveloped 

 

  • In small groups the teacher can take time to discuss the meaning of words
  • Read wordless books with the pupil and ask him / her to retell his / her version of the story. This is an excellent way to check for understanding and extend vocabulary: 
    Teacher Guidance: Videos to Reading Strategies 
    • The pupil can give his / her interpretation of the story based on looking at the illustrations.  This will help develop early comprehension skills such as inference, prediction, making connections and understanding of structure:
      Teacher Guidance: Wordless Picture Books
  • Introduce the 5 W’s prompts - What, Why, Where, When, Who
    • The pupil will have to think of these 5 questions when trying to understand a story
  • Develop the pupil’s vocabulary and understanding
  • Use ‘book’ language such as the plot, the setting, the title, captions, headings 
  • Use Shared Reading to model and present key points of a story in a simple chart

The pupil may have a slow reading pace and lack fluency 

 

 

  • Repeated reading is helpful until reading becomes automatic which will allow pupil to focus on the understanding and not decoding
  • Read to the pupil, using correct expression and intonation, taking one sentence and paragraph at a time and modelling prosody. The pupil can then imitate 
  • Use echo reading, reader’s theatre, nursery rhymes, poems and chants, these will all help the pupil develop prosody
  • Encourage the use of speaking with expression, emphasising emotions and intonations through use of role play
  • Provide the pupil with short reading activities that have some words in bold. Encourage and model how to read the words in bold with expression (as words in bold need to be emphasised):
    Teacher Guidance: Reading Fluency
  • Encourage the pupil to apply knowledge of nouns, verbs and adjectives to his / her reading and learn the technique of visualisation to help with comprehension
  • The pupil can create his / her own read aloud books or a short story and use fluency and expression to read to peers
  • The pupil can listen to a sentence read without expression and discuss correct intonation and punctuation required

A balanced and integrated approach to teaching reading and spelling will lead to a more inclusive learning environment.

Some pupils will learn to read implicitly through exposure to words and text. A pupil with literacy difficulties, however, needs to be explicitly taught both from a (bottom-up approach), beginning with alphabetic knowledge, whole word recognition and onset and rime patterns, while at the same time developing a (top-down) knowledge of vocabulary, sentence structure and meaning of text. All the processes in individual word reading need to operate together and interact with each other to ensure comprehension. It is only when the pupil has become secure in recognising some letter sounds and names, and has ‘anchor words’ to rely on, that the initial letter can be manipulated and the structure of words becomes more apparent. Comprehension of text becomes more attainable, and fluency and expression may develop. The importance of an interactive and interconnected model of reading has been proposed, in order to support a pupil with phonological, orthographic and memory difficulties.

Assistive Technology
Signposting to Professional learning modules

The following professional learning modules may be helpful for additional information regarding the strategies recommended in this chapter. They are provided by the Literacy and Language and Communication Services and are available through Children and Young People's Services Professional Learning Programme, which is hosted on the EA website. Professional Learning Modules for Understanding Receptive and Expressive Language are offered by the Language and Communication Service. The access code to the courses is updated each year and shared with your Principal in September:

Bibliography and References

DENI Special Educational Needs (SEN) Resource File: ‘The Beginning Reading Programme’ (Dr S McMurray) 

A resource for schools to support children who have or may have Special Educational Needs Department of Education (education-ni.gov.uk)

Department of Education (DE) (2008) ‘Every school a good school, A Strategy for Raising Standards in Literacy and Numeracy’. Bangor: DENI

Department of Education, (2009) ‘The Way Forward for SEN and Inclusion’

Department of Education, (2011) ‘A Resource File for Schools to support children with special Educational needs’

Department of Education (2011) ‘Count Read Succeed’. Bangor: DENI 

Department of Education, (2012) Every school a good school, SEN and Inclusion’ Consultation document 

Deheane, (2013) ‘How the brain learns to read’.

Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). ‘The science of reading progresses: Communicating advances beyond the simple view of reading’. Reading Research Quarterly, 56, S25-S44. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/rrq.411

Education Endowment Foundation (2018) ‘Preparing for Literacy: Improving Communication, Language and Literacy in the Early Years’, London: Education Endowment Foundation. 

Frith, U. (2020) ‘Dyslexia: learning to read in Italian’. Video. Accessed 5/10/22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrxiqq9gsU&t=1s

Good Practice Guidelines 

Hogan, T., Bridges, M., Justice, L. and Cain, K. (2011) ‘Increasing Higher Level Language Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension’, Focus on Exceptional Children’ 44 (3), pp.1–19.

Kelly, K. and Phillips, S. (2022) ‘Teaching Literacy to learners with Dyslexia-A Multi-sensory Approach’. London: Sage Publications Ltd 

Kirkpatrick, D. (2016) ‘Equipped for Reading Success: A Comprehensive, Step-by-Step Program for Developing Phonemic Awareness and Fluent Word Recognition’. New York: Casey & Kirsch Publishers

Lavan, G & Talcott, J. B, (2021). ‘BROOK’S WHAT WORKS FOR LITERACY DIFFICULTIES’

McMurray, S. (2020) ‘A resource for schools to support children who may have Special Educational Needs: The beginning reading programme: the importance of a balanced approach’

McMurray, S. (2020) ‘A resource for schools to support children who may have Special Educational Needs: The importance of an integrated approach when learning to spell’

 McMurray, S, and Fleming C. (1998, 2006) The “Complete Spelling programme (CSP) Spelling and Language Programme”, (3rd Edition, 2014) The Read Write Company Limited

McMurray, S. and Thompson, R. (2016) ‘Issues in Inclusion and Individual Learning Needs Learning to Read’. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs. Volume 16, Number s1, 679‐683 doi: 10.1111/1471‐3802.12200    

Wyse, D. & Bradbury, A. (2021) ‘Reading wars or reading reconciliation’. Free to read at: https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/rev3.3314