My Reception children are secure on their GPCs, but not with word reading. What can I do?

If your children are secure on their GPCs, use daily whole-class teacher-led blending or in small groups for those that need it.

That regular push this half-term will give them the extra repeated practice.

Find more support for repeated practice in our guidance on the Teaching tab.

Run a quick invite-only session for the parents and carers of your wobbliest children. Give them a set of GPC cards, a list of words and show them how to practise blending them with their children. If possible, meet every week. Ten minutes of your time after-school once a week will make a huge difference.

If you struggle to engage parents, which we sometimes did at my school, we asked the Year 6 children to help us do blending with the younger ones and they did it at dinner time as a little job.

You could also run a breakfast club doing more teacher-led blending with your wobbliest ones for 15 mins before school too. By invite only!

Use the wordless books lesson templates to teach an additional teacher-led blending session in the pre-read, for your most wobbly children.

Finding additional opportunities during continuous provision/transitions of the day (tidy-up time/toilet time) to do some extra teacher-led blending with wobbly children.