Dear parents and carers,
As part of your child’s reading journey with RWI they are reading the attached sheets in class and we would like your child to read these again at home, to show you the progress they've made. These sheets are called Ditty sheets, they read these short paragraphs before beginning to read RWI red books in class, alongside bringing home their usual reading books.
With your child please point to the sounds at the top of the sheet and ensure they are pronouncing them correctly. Then move to the green words, pointing to each word as you go through. Remind your child of the rules for reading, “special friends, Fred talk, read the word”. Your child will identify any special friends in the word (2 or more letters that link to make one sound, ch, sh, ng, etc.) and say this sound, then “Fred talk” (sound out) the word, before blending the sounds together to read the word. The green words listed will be the words that are in the paragraph, remind your child of this when they are reading and if they get stuck try not to intervene but remind them of the rules for reading and support them with blending if they get stuck.
Some sheets will have Red words listed at the top. These are words that cannot be sounded out, and need to be learnt by sight. The words they encounter will be ones they’ve seen in school. Tell your child the word if they need support, these words need a lot of exposure to ensure your child remembers them.
Support your child with reading the paragraph by pointing to each word at a time. Each sheet should be read at least three times. The first read your child will be working hard on sounding out and blending each word, the second read your child may have memorised some words and be starting to make sense of each sentence and by the third read their confidence will have increased and they should be able to read the paragraph and comprehend it. Check their comprehension by asking the question at the bottom of the sheet. The sentence writing we will have covered in class but if your child would like to do some writing practice then please feel free to use this as an example.
Thank you for your continued support. Any questions please come and ask.
Many thanks,
Miss King and Mrs Redman