We understand that supporting your child to read texts can be challenging.  At school we encourage children to use a variety of reading strategies to help decode the text. First, the students use letter-sound knowledge to sound out each sound in the words (c-a-t), then blend the sounds together slowly to read the word (cat). At school, we say to the ākonga "say it as slow as a sloth, then as fast as a cheetah". This helps tamariki to blend the sounds together to make the word.  Then, we get the student to reread. This means when we have finished sounding out the word, we go back to the last full stop and reread the sentence to remember what the sentence is and use it to help us decode the word. We encourage students to look at the pictures in the story to help them connect the pictures to the meaning of the story and the words.

We often send Phonics Plus books home. At the back of these books is a teacher notes section to help guide the reading. You may find this useful to prompt decoding skills and discussion about the book.