Help your child develop their English skills in Reception, with hundreds of useful articles and Reception English worksheets that will support learning at home.
As your child prepares for reading and writing, discover activities and games that will foster vital speaking and listening skills, introduce the phonics system and practise handwriting.
Articles
Reception English: what your child learns
Want to know how your child’s English skills are developed when they start school? Read on to find out.
Develop your child's literacy skills in the early years
Supporting kids’ literacy skills at home is a key factor in helping them to become accomplished readers with broad vocabularies. Get started today!
Using story books to learn to read
Are Kipper, Chip and co the only fictional characters your child is reading about now that they're learning to read? Education writer Phoebe Doyle argues that every book's a reading book, and children's literature is as vital as reading scheme books when it comes to learning to read.
Tutorials
Phonics sounds mats tutorial
These handy interactive phonics sounds mats will help you practise each of the phonics sounds your child will learn in Reception and Year 1, grouped in the phonics phases they will learn them in.
Phonics sounds interactive resource
This handy interactive phonics sounds resource will help you practise phoneme sounds with your child, organised according to the 7 groups they'll be learning them in. How many other words can you think of that include each of the sounds?
Worksheets
Simple words memory game
Play this memory game with your child to help them practise reading simple words.
Making a zig-zag book
Can you make some zig-zag books? First of all do a front cover for your story. Think about making it really exciting so that people want to read it. Also write your name on the front so that people know who wrote it. Then tell your story in the zig-zag book using words and pictures. You may even like to use speech bubbles!
The sounds /sh/ and /ch/ (Phase 3 phonics)
Have a look at the sounds /sh/ and /ch/. Have fun saying the two sounds – do you sound like a train?
Also see:
Work through the worksheet we recommend each week as part of the Reception English Learning Journey and over the course of the year your child will cover all the key topics in the curriculum for their school year – including the relevant handwriting, reading and writing skills.
By following the programme, which closely mirrors what your child is being taught in school, you’ll quickly be able to spot any topics that your child hasn't fully grasped and reinforce learning that is happening in the classroom at home. Your child will feel more confident in their own abilities and you’ll know you are giving your child the very best chance of succeeding in school.
Is your Reception child's English learning on track?
In just under a year your four- or five-year-old will learn to read and write, making giant literacy leaps and laying the foundations of all their future learning. Marvel at their progress and identify any areas they need extra support and practice in at home with our Reception English Progress checks.
Our Reception English Progress checks are designed to help your child practise reading and blending sounds, writing letters and structuring simple sentences.
Each term’s check consists of 20 questions and a total of 20 marks. Work through the questions with your child and make sure you read lots of traditional tales to help you prepare!
This bumper eBook of carefully crafted, interactive activities is ideally suited for parents of children in the earliest stages of their education. With 60 bright, entertaining and beautifully illustrated activities, all with easy to follow guidelines, this book is perfect for getting 3-5 year olds on the road to learning fun.
The activities are grouped together by 10 themes – from dinosaurs to the farmyard, via nursery rhymes and ‘people who help us’. Each activity is beautifully illustrated and comes with any accompanying worksheets or other resources (like board games) you might need to make the most of it.
With the emphasis on fun, interactive activities that we can enjoy with our young children, The Nursery and Reception Activity eBook is packed full of brilliant activities, games, songs, rhymes and more to make learning a real delight.
Learning to read is all about phonics these days, so if you don't know your phonemes from your digraphs our phonics learning pack is for you. You'll get a complete overview of how and why phonics is taught, as well as teacher tips to help you make phonics learning part of your child's everyday life and 50 printable games and activities to put the theory into practice.
