Phase 5: Application in shared and guided reading and writing

Identify in advance any words in the text which contain 'ee'. Mark these up in some way (e.g. sticking a coloured piece of paper underneath). Regularly start shared reading sessions by asking the children what they are going to do if they can't read a word. (Strategies covered so far should include using the first sound of a word, blending all the phonemes in a short word, and breaking a longer word into bits before blending.) Explain to the children that when they come to a word which is marked up, they are going to blend the phonemes and read the word. This should stop any of the higher-attaining children from shouting out the word before the others have had the chance to practise their blending skills.

If children are stuck on a word which contains 'ee', encourage them to blend and read it.
If children start to sound out the word by breaking it into letters (e.g. /s-e-e/), ask them to find the digraph in the word and point to it. What sound do those two letters make? (/ee/). Get them to blend and read the word and then reread the sentence.

Pick a word containing 'ee' from the text to focus on as the teaching point at the end of the guided reading session (this could be a word that the children found tricky to read). Write the word on a small whiteboard, point to each letter and get the children to blend and read it. You could then change the first or last grapheme (e.g. change 'beep' into 'been') and get the children to work out what the new word says by blending the phonemes. Alternatively, you could add a rhyming word underneath and get the children to work out what it says, by blending and reading. You could add up to four rhyming words in this way and end the session by pointing to them in random order and getting the children to read them.