Reading
“Reading is a passport to countless adventures” - Mary Pope Osborne
Daily guided reading sessions provide regular opportunities for children to practice and develop their skills. Reading in school is supported by home reading. Every child has a reading record that teachers, parents and carers are expected to sign as a record of the child’s reading behaviours and experiences.
We use a combination of reading schemes to promote independent reading. These provide a variety of fiction and non–fiction books and extend reading phonetically. Children learn to read at different rates and it is important that children can talk about what they have read. Once they finish the reading scheme, we encourage them to become ‘free readers’ and choose their own books.
Key Stage Two are taught to read using a range of strategies and they continue with the structured phonics programme. We supplement the reading schemes with a wide range of diverse fiction, non-fiction and poetry including classic children’s literature.
Phonics
Children in both Nursery and Reception engage in daily phonics sessions, following the Little Wandle guidance to ensure they develop their phonic skills. Skills learnt and developed in these sessions are integral to the development and confidence levels in writing for each child. As children progress through the phases within letters and sounds, they learn how to write phonetically correct words and ‘tricky’ words such as’ to’, ‘go’ and ‘the’. Children who are not on track are given the opportunity top participate in the ‘daily keep up’ programme from Little Wandle’.
Year 1 Phonics Screening
Children in Year 1 will sit the Phonics Screening Check in June each year. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.
The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is an informal test that children will need to complete at the end of year 1. During the test, which is designed to test their ability to decode words using phonics knowledge, children will be required to read a mixture of 40 real and nonsense words. Nonsense words are included to ensure that children are using their decoding skills and not just relying on their memory of words they have read before. The pass mark, over the last few years, has been 32/40.
