Alphabet activities using magnetic letters to arrange the alphabet, talk about letters, and for older students, practice alphabetical order.

Phonic awareness, games to develop areas of weakness with rhyming, identifying initial sounds and consolidating prior knowledge.

Spelling and reading card routine; over the course of lessons children build up a pack of reading and spelling cards. These remind children of previous sounds covered and reinforce their understanding. Reading cards have a picture and word chosen by the child, and spelling cards allow children to know how and when that spelling type is used.

New learning; following the Kelly and Phillips ‘Conquering Literacy’ program. We work through the sounds that a child needs to learn; creating reading and spelling cards, using it within words and dictated sentences.

High-frequency words: This can be reading or spelling, building up the number of words the child knows ‘off by heart.’ This helps with children’s confidence. For older children, it may be looking at subject-specific vocabulary.

Reading/Writing: I usually alternate between reading and writing, examining all aspects of comprehension, sentence/paragraph construction, punctuation, and vocabulary extension.