Reading is separated into two areas:

Word Recognition and language Comprehension.

Word Recognition is when a person can effortlessly know a word when they see it.

Language Comprehension is when a person understands what the words mean.

Children focus on the word recognition skills during early years and key Stage 1 and in Key Stage 2, the focus moves to language comprehension.

Word Recognition

Through phonics, children are taught to read by learning the phonemes (sounds) that represent letters or groups of graphemes (letters). With this knowledge, children can begin to read words by learning how to blend the sounds together. Unlocking how this alphabetic code works means they can learn to decode any word.

They will also be taught to read words – such as ‘once’, ‘was’ or ‘have’ – which don’t follow the phonic ‘rules’. They’ll build up a stock of these tricky words that they can recognise straight away.

Language Comprehension

Through talking everyday, pupils talk about the words that they are reading and writing and look at what they mean. Language comprehension is the ability to understand the words and their meaning, both spoken and in print when reading.

Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is when children can read the printed word and understand what it means.