Welcome to Ready to Read Phonics Plus - The start of the pathway to reading.
Poipoia te kākano kia puāwai
Nurture the seed and it will blossom
Ready to Read Phonics Plus is organised in four phases
From kākano the seed,
through tupu the seedling,
māhuri the sapling
to rākau the tree.
Your young readers enter at the phase they are ready for.
They will progress to the next phase at the right pace for them before moving onto the familiar Ready to Read Colour Wheel books.
Ready to Read Phonics Plus emphasises word recognition. They give young readers the tools to “crack the code” as they move into increasing reading comprehension.
Each Ready to Read Phonics Plus book adds new phonic knowledge.
They will give children the chance to practise what has already been learnt.
Here is a Kākano, or first phase story – “Get to the Vet”.
I’ll quickly read through the story for you, before we look at the teaching moments in more detail.
Nat’s cat has a bad leg. His leg is cut.
“Let’s get him to the vet,” says Dad.
The cat sits in the van.
“The cut is bad,” says the vet.
“He needs a jab.”
The cat licks his leg.
“Ka pai,” says Nat.
Now let’s look at “Get to the Vet” more closely, and see the learning opportunities along the way.
Before starting, children will be taught target sounds. In “Get to the Vet” these are:
(enunciates "v" sound)
(enunciates "j" sound)
and (enunciates "l" sound)
Children can also practise reading the letter sound patterns they have already learned.
Read the story aloud together and point to each word as it is read.
There are two types of word in this story.
Regular decodable words like “cat” and “bad”. Support the children to sound these words out and then blend the sounds to form the word.
(enunciates "c" sound)
(enunciates "a" sound)
(enunciates "t" sound)
Sounding the words out like this builds phonological awareness and decoding knowledge.
The other type are high use non-decodable words – such as “has” and “is” – and these you can simply pre-teach.
Continue to focus on decoding through the rest of the book.
After reading the book, there are other activities you can do to support vocabulary, phonological awareness and spelling.
For example “bad” – ask them to think of other words with a similar meaning (like “sore”) and have them use the words in the sentence.
You can also draw attention to words that can be changed – for example “cut” can change to “cuts” or “cutting”. Show the part of the word that stays the same and the bit that is different. Have them use the different words in a sentence.
“Let’s get him to the vet,” says Dad. Support children to listen and spot where the sound changes in words. Use the letters here to spell and read the words.
“If this word spells “vet”, can you spell “pet”?
If this word spells “pet”, can you spell “pat”?”
These are great stories to help generate discussion. “How do you think the cat may have hurt his leg?” Maybe the reader has a pet and has taken it to the vet. Talk about what a vet does to help animals.
Also, draw attention to words that are part of the picture. Discuss how these help tell the story.
Finally ask the children to retell the story to friends or family. Use the picture cues to prompt if necessary.
Give them plenty of praise and encouragement.
Each Ready to Read Phonics Plus book comes with great teaching notes. These have heaps of ideas about how you can use the books to engage your children with word recognition and language comprehension.
Mā te manaakitanga a te whānau e puāwai ai te tangata
With the aroha and support of the collective, the potential of the individual will be realised
Mā te wā
<< Return to Ready to Read Phonics Plus
Welcome to Ready to Read Phonics Plus – the start of the pathway to reading.
Poipoia te kākano kia puāwai
Nurture the seed and it will blossom
Ready to Read Phonics Plus is organised in four phases –
From kākano the seed,
through tupu the seedling,
māhuri the sapling,
to rākau the tree.
Your young readers enter at the phase they are ready for. They will progress to the next phases at the right pace for them, before moving onto the familiar Ready to Read Colour Wheel books.
Ready to Read Phonics Plus emphasises word recognition. They give young readers the tools to “crack the code” as they move into increasing reading comprehension.
Each Ready to Read Phonics Plus book adds new phonic knowledge. They will give children the chance to practise what has already been learnt.
Here is another Kākano, or first phase story – “Nan in a Net”.
I will quickly read through the story for you, before we look at the teaching moments in more detail.
Nan is in bed.
“Get up” says Tāne.
“Let’s go!”
Can Nan nap?
No! Nan is up.
Nan and Tāne go to the awa.
Tāne gets the net.
Nan cuts a bun.
Nan naps.
The net tips onto Nan!
“Let me out!” says Nan.
Tāne tugs the net.
Nan is out.
Now let’s look at “Nan in a Net” more closely.
There are quite a few target sounds in this book to practise together first:
"c" "l" "n" "b" "s" "i" "u"
Children can also practise reading the letter sound patterns they have already learned.
Read the story aloud together and point out each word as you read.
There are two types of word in this story.
Sound out the regular decodable words like “Nan” and “bed”. Support children to sound these words out and then blend the sounds to form the word
N–a–n "Nan"
Give plenty of praise and encourage re-reading to build fluency.
Simply say the high use non-decodable words – such as “says” and “is”.
Continue to focus on decoding through the rest of the book.
After reading, there are other activities you can do to support vocabulary, phonological awareness and spelling.
For example, the start of this story provides a great discussion point once the book has been read.
Why do you think Tāne was so keen to get an early start? Has there been a time when you were really excited and you had to get up early?
As children read, practise segmenting and blending the sounds to make a word. Say “Let’s say the sounds together in each word I say”
c–a–n "can"
n–a–p "nap"
Help children find the words you are segmenting.
"Can Nan nap?" Draw attention to the question mark and how it changes the way the sentence is said. “Can you hear the way my voice goes up at the end?”
"Nan and Tāne go to the awa." After children have read the book, talk about the word awa, and how to say it. Find out the name of an awa that may be close to home or school, or that children associate with.
"Tāne gets the net." If you need to, help children see where the sound changes in the word. Using “net”, have them sound out b–e–t, g–e–t and l–e–t by changing the first letter. Prompt with 'if this word spells “net” can you spell “get”?'
Nan cuts a bun. After reading the book you can talk about how words can change – “cut” to “cuts” or “cutting”. Try to make different sentences using these different words.
"Nan naps" Talk about the word “nap” and what it means. “What other words mean the same thing?" "Can you put them into a sentence?"
Finally, after reading, ask children to retell the story to friends or family. Use the picture cues to prompt if necessary. Give them plenty of praise and encouragement.
Each Ready to Read Phonics Plus book comes with great teaching notes. These have heaps of ideas about how you can use the books to engage your children with word recognition and language comprehension.
Mā te manaakitanga a te whānau e puāwai ai te tangata
With the aroha and support of the collective, the potential of the individual will be realised
Mā te wā
<< Return to Ready to Read Phonics Plus
Published on: 15 Jun 2021
