Contact Details
- 01489 782075
- adminoffice@freegrounds-inf.hants.sch.uk
Hobb Lane, Hedge End, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 0GG
Freegrounds
Infant School
At Freegrounds Infant School the children are encouraged to develop a love of reading through a range of high quality literature.
READING
The school uses the Book Bands System which supports children in learning to read by teaching them reading skills. Reading is developmental, therefore books are organised into coloured bands, which each have an set of reading skills attached to them.
As the children read the books they practice and develop the skills for each colour band. Once the children have mastered the skills for their current colour band they move onto the next colour book band where they practice and learn the next set of skills.
We find this system not only works but is easily understood by parents who wish to support their children with reading at home. The children have access to a high quality fiction and non fiction books and we regularly update these books so as to ensure they are interesting to the children and encourage them to want to read.
PHONICS
In line with the recent government recommendations, we have chosen Twinkl Phonics (one of the Department of Education’s validated, systematic synthetic phonics programmes), to support your child in learning to read and write.
Here is a helpful guide for parents which overviews:
Sound mats and Tricky/Common Exception words for each level are available below.
We strongly believe that teaching children to read is one of the most important things we do. Working together with you we can ensure that all children develop the essential skills and understanding they need to go on to be successful and accomplished readers. After all, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”— Dr. Seuss, “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!” Therefore, your continued support at home is invaluable.
Each week your child’s teacher will add to Google classroom:
For more information on the benefits of systematic teaching of phonics along with the actions and Mnemonics used at each level, to introduce new sounds please see the PowerPoint below.
Rights as a reader.
Hot chocolate reading.
As part of our desire to encourage a reading community at Freegrounds Infant School we have launched a hot chocolate reading incentive to help support the love of reading and the sharing of good quality books.
Each week one lucky child from each class will bring home a book to share and a sachet of hot chocolate to enjoy whilst doing so.
This book is to be shared with anyone they want, it does not need to be instructional reading, it can be done snuggled up wherever you want to be. The only thing we ask is that you let us know what you think of the book!
A post-it note is stuck on the inside of the front cover so that each child can write a simple review, including whether they would recommend it to a friend, what they liked about it or anything else your child would like to tell us about it!
WRITING
Use the links below to find out what writing we will be covering in Year 1 and Year 2!
Hobb Lane, Hedge End, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 0GG