Teaching Keywords

[Guest]

Just wondering what and how often people do specific work with teaching their children the Reception keywords? Every day, every time you read? Just curious as to what people find works best. Thanks!

[Susan]

I teach the phonically regular words as they fit with the phonics programme and then concentrate on them before looking at irregular words.

[Guest]

We introduce two or three a week and incorporate them into our week's writing activities. We also use them for reading at self registration, starting with I am ....[insert child's name] and progressing to things like "We like ....." "Can I play with..." etc etc.

We send them home as flash words the following week and from time to time we read them as a whole class.

Many of the high frequency words are phonically regular and are therefore decodable once the children have learnt how to blend. It's the irregular words that are the sticking point.

[leapfrog]

I use a variety of methods.

 

For the first couple - and, the, mum, dad I flag them up as we read - maybe write on a post-it - and make a big fuss as soon as anyone notices them. We use 2 picture sheets (a caterpillar and snake with words on each section) with the R year words on and these go home once the child is secure with the initial sounds. We go over them each time we hear the child read and tick any they know. Once the child has three ticks they colour the section. We have colour versions of these sheets in the book corner- and use them in guided and group reading to use and teach that they are useful for this.

 

The words lots of children are working on I put up on the classroom door - written on bricks to form a wall - just one or two to start with then add more.