Phonics: Nursery children will continue to improve their skills of identifying rhyming pairs and continuing rhyming strings. As they are gaining confidence in hearing the initial sounds in words and matching them to objects, they will progress to orally blending and segmenting sounds in words. For example, listening to the sounds c-oa-t and knowing they blend to spell coat, then asking them to tell us the sounds that spell simple words such as hat. To tune in their listening skills, they will continue with sound walks, listening to the quietest of sounds such as branches in the breeze. 

Reception children have now been taught all the phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs and will continue to practise blending them to read increasingly difficult words including ccvccs, compound words and words with more than 2 syllables. The remaining phase 4 tricky words will be introduced and children will practise reading sentences which include a combination of these. 

Reading: Most reception children are now taking home 4 decodable reading books each week to practise the sounds recently introduced in phonics and those they are still revisiting. They read daily in school during phonics sessions and in 2 or 3 adult led group guided reading sessions. Captions, instructions and challenges are also read by the children. A range of Spring themed information books and story books are available and a range of fairy tales will read to the children. Our new, partially shelters outdoor reading area is proving very popular with decodable books and outdoor information books currently available.

Library books are discussed, with the focus this half term on who the author is and who/what the main character is.

Writing: Nursery children are practising the correct formation of letters in their names using the Red Rose phonics phrases. The reception children are practising the formation of those remaining letters that they are struggling to form and are all trying to ensure that the letters sit on the lines with taller ascenders and descenders going below the line on f, j, g and y. 

Reception children practise sentence writing with finger spaces and a full stop at the end, or even a question mark. As we begin our topic of fairy tales, we will try to write our own simple versions of Jack and the Beanstalk stories. The nursery children will be encouraged to write at every opportunity and those who are confident at recognising and hearing sounds in words will be supported in their attempts to include these sounds in their writing.

New and relevant vocabulary will be taught and used throughout the day, with focussed vocabulary in each subject being introduced.