Courses

The overall purpose of the ‘Foundations of Literacy’ course is to increase awareness of the importance of both Phonological Awareness (PA) and Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) as foundations of early literacy development and help staff to identify the children that may require early additional input or, if older struggling readers, may need input into these foundation areas in order to make reading interventions more effective.

Reciprocal Teaching is a very well evidenced teaching strategy that improves reading comprehension across year groups. It is a structured discussion technique that can be used in different subjects and when reading at all different levels. It is a metacognitive strategy that improves the learners' ability to engage and reflect on their reading in a deeper way.

Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) is designed to help staff to identify the children that may require early additional input in order to make
phonics interventions more effective.

This video outlines how important phonological awareness is throughout the reading acquisition process and why it may be helpful to continue with this even after phonics has been introduced.

It also shows how clearly a deficit in phonological awareness in nursery is almost certain to lead to later reading difficulties, unless interventions and additional practise is instigated.