Reading and Phonics

Intent

• Be the best we can be now and in our futures: we place a strong emphasis on securing strong early reading skills so that children can read with the fluency needed for comprehension at a high level

• Ambition for all:  ensuring that no child’s circumstances define their outcomes: we believe every child can become a reader with the right support 

• Nurture a healthy mind, body and soul: fostering a life-long love of reading

• Develop a crew mentality for our school, the Rock Ferry community and our world: seeing themselves in the books they read as well as seeing people different to them and their family to broaden their understanding of the world and challenge stereotypes.

Implementation

At Rock Ferry Primary School, we believe that being able to read is an essential life skill. Being able to read opens up life chances because it is used in every subject, allows you to learn about anything and it is a wonderful way to relax! Because reading is so important, we place a high importance on teaching your child to read.

We teach early reading skills through a systematic synthetic phonics system called Little Wandle. At this stage, we teach children the sounds letters make so that they can read words accurately. Children are given books that are carefully selected to only include the sounds they have learned so far.

Once children have mastered the ability to read words fluently and accurately, we focus on children's comprehension skills using a scheme called Pathways to Read. Children read books from the Accelerated Reader programme which matches books to your child's reading speed and level of understanding.

Every single child at Rock Ferry Primary School, whether they are 3 or 11, are read to by an adult every single day. We believe this quality time of enjoying a book together, hearing a good model of reading and practising the skills of comprehension are key to developing a life-long love of learning. It also allows your child to access high quality books with rich vocabulary that they may not be able to read themselves yet.

For further detail about how we teach phonics and reading comprehension, please read on...

We use Little Wandle Phonics to teach early reading to every child in foundation one to year one.

What is Phonics?

Phonics is an effective way of teaching children to read. By ensuring high quality phonics teaching, we want to improve literacy levels and give all children a solid base to build on as they progress through school.

Through phonics, children are taught how to:

• recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes

• identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make, such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’

• blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word

Children can then use this knowledge to ‘decode’ new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read.

How is it taught?

We use the DfE accredited programme ‘Little Wandle’ to teach the 6 ‘Phases’ of phonic development.

For our children at the earliest stage of reading (usually in foundation 1), we focus on developing children's awareness of sounds through nursery rhymes, alliteration, focussing on initial sounds and oral blending. There are some fantastic nursery rhymes that you can share with your child here to help them tune into sounds.

Nursery Rhymes: For parents | Letters and Sounds

As children move into foundation 2, we systematically introduce them to the graphemes (letters that make the sounds). We begin with the single sound for each letter then move onto digraphs and trigraphs (two and three letters that make one sound e.g. ai, igh). Once children have mastered this, we look at different ways of spelling the same sound. At each stage, we teach children to blend the sounds they know together to read words and sentences. Children also use to segment, which is to break a word down into the sounds that make it so they can write it down using the phonics they know.

All children in F1 to Y1 have a daily phonics session that is at least 20mins long. Children in F2 and Y1 also have a reading group at least three times per week so they can use what they have learned in books closely matched to the sounds they know.

You can view some videos here that show you how we teach your child phonics How we teach For parents | Letters and Sounds

There are also some very helpful videos here that show you how to say each sounds accurately and how we write them Sounds for parents | Letters and Sounds

The Phonics Screening Check

The Phonics Screening Check is a statutory check that all year one children complete in June. It contains 40 words divided into 2 sections of 20 words. Both sections contain a mixture of real words and pseudo-words. Children will sit one to one with an adult they know well from Rock Ferry Primary School and have a go at reading each word.

Pseudo-words are words that are phonically decodable but are not actual words with an associated meaning. They are included in the check specifically to assess whether your child can decode a word using their phonics skills.

All pseudo-words in the check are accompanied by a picture of an imaginary creature. Children are taught that when a word has a creature next to it, it is a pseudo-word. This ensures that they are not trying to match the pseudo-word to a word in their vocabulary.

The check is designed to give teachers information on how your child is progressing in phonics. It will help to identify whether your child needs additional support at this stage, so that they do not fall behind in this vital early reading skill.

If your child does not pass the phonics Screening Check in year one, we will continue to support them to learn this key skills through additional phonics teaching in year two. They will have another chance to try the phonics screening check at the end of year two. If they do not pass at this stage, our SENCO may get in touch with you to discuss your child's needs and put together a plan of additional support to help your child learn to read.

For further information, please speak to your child's class teacher or read this leaflet produced by the DfE

Once children have mastered the basics of reading through our phonics programme (usually in year two), children are taught the skills of comprehension using the programme Pathways to Read. We use high-quality and varied texts. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the reading activities provided.

We deliver one whole class shared reading lesson per week from years 2-6 with grouped reading for every pupil at least once a week as well as individual reading.

In our shared reads, we teach children a specific reading skill such as making inferences or predictions. Children have opportunity to practice this skills with this lesson and then in their group read throughout the week. This gives children opportunity to practice their reading skills with increasing independence and skill.

For children who are fluent readers and ready to move on from phonically decodable books, we use a programme programme to develop fluency and stamina called Accelerated Reading.

We give children regular opportunities to read these books in school and they will also bring them home to read at home.

Accelerated Reading ensures the children are able to select a wide range of high quality texts at their own level which they read at their own pace and then take a quiz to check their understanding.

Reading at Home

Reading Homework:

Children are given regular reading homework to enable them to practise the skills they have learnt in school. This is vital in terms of building up their knowledge of words as well as helping them develop confidence and fluency. We feel that reading homework is a vital part of ensuring that children are able to progress and succeed as readers. It is clear that those children who get good support from home with their reading homework – by listening to them read regularly and then returning books on time- often make the much better progress than those who do not.

If you can take just 5 or 10 minutes to sit with your child each day you could make a HUGE difference in how well they learn at school. Just think what a great investment in your child’s future you could make!

And so to sleep……
One of the most powerful ways you can interact with your child is to read them a bedtime story. Children love it and, not only does it help with developing their language skills and imagination, it also helps them wind down after a hectic day at school.

If you would like any support, help or advice with helping your child to read please do not hesitate to contact any member of staff, who will be happy to help. The school also provides a recommended booklist and opportunities throughout the year to purchase quality books through the school book club and book fair. 

Impact

To ensure children have learned what we have intended them to, we take a rigorous approach to checking what children have learned. Children who are at an early stage of learning to read are assessed individually at least every six weeks so we know exactly which sounds and tricky words they can read along with their ability to blend sounds to make words both orally and from written words. We use this information to plan what needs to be taught in the group session and identify any children needing additional support to close their specific gaps.

Children who are established readers who have moved on from phonics are assessed termly using star reading tests. Each quiz they complete at the end of a book on accelerated reader is used to decide whether they are reader for a slightly harder book next time or need further practice at their current level.

Teachers regularly plan small tasks within reading lessons that lets them see what your child has understood.  This allows them to respond to your child’s need if they haven’t understood a key idea.  This may be offering support or re-teaching within the lesson or adapting the following lesson plans to address bigger misconceptions.   

Subject leaders and senior leaders regularly listen to children read, look in their books to check the quality of their work and visit lessons.  We use this information to review the quality of our curriculum and identify any areas where we could make it even better.