Manorfield Primary School

Early Words

Early Words uses a range of interactive activities; one to one with an adult to help children learn High Frequency Words at a rapid pace. Early Words is being run with children across the school as a way of learning High Frequency Words to enable children to recognise them within their reading. The reason behind this is that 50% of anything you read are HFWs. The session is run daily for 5-10 minutes on a one-to-one basis with an adult with a follow up of home learning every night. An adult will introduce a new word every day to the child and they will talk about the word, play games with the word and practice reading the word, all in aid of the child retaining the NEW word.

Below are some strategies that will be used in the intervention that you could also support at home:

• Beating your best – a child is more likely to want to engage with reading if it is turned into a fun interactive game. One way of doing this is getting the child to challenge their best score. How many times can you read the words in 1 minute (support sheet would be provided)

• Hiding the word – this gives the child time to think about the words they have learnt and to use their knowledge to find which word is missing from their set. You simply have the words the child has been practicing and remove one, giving them time to work out which word you have hidden,

• Follow the word – turn the learning of a new word into a fun game. Have the word card ready and move it around your body getting your child to say the word every time it is moved.

• Encourage turn taking – child and adult should be talking the same amount. If the adult is talking more, then watch the child play for a little bit – it is ok to be silent when you are playing as this might support the child to have more opportunity to talk.

• Praise – giving positive praise for talking and behaviour can motivate a child to use the new words and phrases at other times. Immediate praise for good things is usually more effective than correcting their talking and expressing disapproval.