We have been spending lots of time teaching reading : story time, reading together (reading fluency), daily phonics lessons, vocabulary lessons, RIC (comprehension), individual reading, discussing books we have read, giving star ratings and lots more!
Being able to read and write the year 1 and year 2 common exception words is important to develop fluency. These words do not follow the usual spelling rules and so are sometimes tricky to read or write. They need to be learnt as whole words and just remembered.
We try to make learning them fun – chalking them on the playground for example!