At St Thomas’, we are committed to developing positive attitudes to reading. Our desire is for all children to leave our school as confident, independent and enthusiastic readers. Learning to read and choosing to read is our aim for every pupil. We are aware of the impact being a confident, engaged reader has on life chances and educational success and we know that this important journey begins with us. 

As soon as children start in Reception, the children will focus on developing their speaking and listening skills, whilst being immersed in songs, rhymes, stories and poetry across the curriculum. The children will begin to learn their set one sounds and explore building and reading simple words by blending sounds together. 

Below are some activities that will support your children with preparing them for the early stages of reading and ignite their love of reading. 

Listening Walk 

Go on a listening walk. You could go around

your house or an outside area with an adult
and practise listening carefully to all the
different sounds you hear. Talk about
what you heard. Did you recognise all the
sounds? Were they loud or quiet? Were they
long or short sounds?

Follow the Leader 

Play ‘Follow-the-Leader’ with
your family. One person chooses
some body percussion, such as
patting their knees, clapping
their hands or clicking
their fingers, and the
rest of the family have to
copy them. Take turns to
be the leader.

Making Silly Soup

Can you make some silly soup. Each soup that you create needs to have 3 ingredients that start with the same sound. For example, toast, toffee and tomatoes. Perhaps you can repeat the rhyme below and list the different types of ingredients. 

Sound Hunt 

Can you go on a sound hunt. Look around at home or in your outdoor area and find things beginning with the same letter sound. Can you find three things beginning with `t`? What other sounds can you see? 

I Spy 

Can you play a game of I Spy and use Fred Talk to sound out the different items you can see. Encourage your child to blend the sounds together to make a word. 

E.g. I spy with my little eye a 

m-a-t - mat 

c-a-t- cat 

p-o-t- pot 

sh-e-d

Enjoying books for pleasure 

Read and enjoy different stories with your child at home. This could include reading a range of traditional tales, short stories, poems and non-fiction books. Encourage your child to talk about their favourite character, make predictions about the text, describe the characters and retell key parts. Can your child join in with any repeated refrains to help bring the story to life and add expression. 

Retelling stories using puppets 

Can you child retell their favourite story using puppets or teddy bears. Perhaps you could support your child with creating their own puppet show and invite family members to come and watch. Children can use a range of story language, vocabulary and expression.