Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest. We develop children’s early reading and writing skills through our ‘Drawing Club’ sessions, Read Write Inc. phonics sessions, guided reading and much more.  

 

By the end of the EYFS, children should: 

• Link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.  

• Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words.  

• Explore and experiment with sounds, words and texts.  

• Retell narratives in the correct sequence, drawing on language patterns of stories. 

• Read a range of familiar and common words and simple sentences independently.  

• Know that print carries meaning and, in English, is read from left to right and top to bottom. 

• Show an understanding of the elements of stories, such as main character, sequence of events and openings, and how information can be found in non-fiction texts to answer questions about where, who, why and how.  

• Attempt writing for different purposes, using features of different forms such as lists, stories and instructions.  

• Write their own names and other things such as labels and captions, and begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation.  

• Use a pencil and hold it effectively to form recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.