ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by making space for reading within classroom and teaching programme. Teaching is as we create time, experiences, opportunities, conversations and resources for reading, and observe children within those spaces, that we can identify their understanding. Reading is a social activity, and talk is an essential element of the reading process. Reading to children is an important time for establishing group cohesion but it is also a vital reading lesson. There will be audio texts – both commercial and homemade – that will enable children to hear different readings and different voices. The purpose of teaching phonics is to enable independent access to the meaning of the text, and that must remain at the forefront of our thinking and planning. Teaching needs to give children the strategies to enable them to access these texts independently, and that is what teaching at sentence and word level does.
