This week the children have been introduced to the graphemes h b f l. They have learned the matching phonemes and the formation rhymes to help them form these letters correctly when writing. We have been practising more blending both orally and using the grapheme cards to build words to blend and this week the children have been introduced to spelling simple words too by segmenting the sounds on their fingers.

Continue practising some 'robot talk' with your child to blend the following words:

h-a-t

b-u-s

l-o-g

f-i-n

h-u-g

b-e-d

l-u-ck

f-a-n

Once you have practised oral blending of these words you could build the words using grapheme cards to practise reading as we do in school.

Our new tricky word this week is:

the  

There are 2 tricky parts when reading 'the':

1) t and h go together to make the digraph 'th'

2) the e makes a schwa to create the 'uh' sound

Home Challenge

We would like the children to play a pairs game at home to practise learning the new graphemes. You just need 8 small pieces of card/paper or post it notes. Choose one of the graphemes and write it on 2 of the pieces of card. Repeat this with the other graphemes do you have 2 cards for each letter. Arrange them in 2 rows of 4 then check your child can say the phoneme to match each card. Encourage them to copy you if they are unsure. Then turn all the cards over so you can no longer see the graphemes. Then take turns to turn over 2 cards at a time and say the phonemes to match the grapheme. If you find a matching pair then remove the cards from the row and keep them. The winner has the most matching pairs at the end.

You can adapt this game to revisit the graphemes from previous weeks or to practise tricky words. You could even create a more challenging reading game by writing some of the words from the blending practise section above on the cards instead. 
As always we would love to see any photos or comments from parents on Tapestry to let us know how the children have got on with this. They love sharing their observations from home with their classmates and collecting smileys for their hard work 😃