Phonics, Reading and Handwriting at Tweseldown Infant School

At Tweseldown we teach our children letter formation using the cursive handwriting style. Each class has formal handwriting sessions each week. The cursive handwriting style can be found in the front of each child’s individual reading records.

All children are taught phonic sounds through a systematic phonics scheme called Letters and Sounds. At Tweseldown we teach our children to recognise and write phonemes (sounds). We also teach children how to use these phonemes to blend for reading and segment for spelling. Children are taught phonics through whole class and small group sessions.

For more information on the phonics sounds please see our parent workshop handout - or better still come along to our phonics workshop in the autumn term.

At Tweseldown Infant School children are taught to apply their phonic knowledge through whole class and guided reading sessions. They are encouraged to decode unknown words through a variety of taught skills such as segmenting (chopping up a word into sounds) and key word recognition. Please see our parent workshop handout for more information.

Our children are also given the opportunity to practise their skills at home through our home reading books. Our home reading books incorporate a range of schemes, such as Oxford Reading Tree, Big Cat Collins, Bug Club and many more. The books are colour banded to represent different stages of reading. Our children also have the opportunity to access a huge range of banded books on the online Bug Club platform. Each pupil has their own log in and teachers can allocate the appropriate reading materials to access at home.

We have a library that is open every day for children to come and choose and change their books. We also have Kindles available for loan with pre-loaded books.