‘Essential Letters and Sounds’ (ELS) is our chosen phonics programme. It teaches children to read by identifying the phonemes (smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (the written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words. Children experience the 
joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills they need to become fluent and independent readers. The phonics programme supports children in making quick progress to become fluent and confident readers.
Research has shown that children make the best progress in reading when they are heard to read regularly at home and school. To best support your child to learn how to read we ask that you encourage your child to read their decodable reading book 4 times across the week, this allows your child to re-read each text several times building their confidence and reading fluency.
It is a key part of learning to read that children re-read words and sentences that they can decode (sound out) until they are fluent (read with ease and precision). By reading texts
several times children have the greatest opportunity to achieve this fluency. Reading fluency is especially important as they begin to learn that the sounds within our language can be spelt in different ways.
The texts sent home are carefully matched to the teaching taking place in school. Your child will be practicing what they have been taught in school with you at home. Spending 10 minutes a day reading with your child will hugely support them in their journey to becoming an independent reader.
Any books that are not yet decodable for the children will be a sharing book. These books are there for you to read with your child, helping us to instill a love of reading from the very beginning of their reading journey. These could be read together with your child reading the words they are able to decode or could be read to your child.
