Phonics & Early Reading

Intent

 

At South Molton Community Primary School we believe that early reading and phonics is a key life skill and an integral part of the whole school curriculum, underpinning all aspects of learning. We endeavour to promote the enjoyment and love of reading for all children. By ensuring every child is an enthusiastic, confident, and engaged reader we aim for each individual child to achieve their learning potential. We encourage children to have an inquisitive attitude to reading, demonstrating their abilities to ask questions and gain in depth understanding of the text read.

 

Reading is a significant skill required for children to achieve in all aspects of learning and academic success and is taught with a holistic approach across the school curriculum. Reading is critical to developing vocabulary and oracy skills. Such opportunities are extended in our outdoor learning that forms a significant part of a child’s learning at South Molton Community Primary School. Outdoor learning stimulates the imagination, whilst not only bringing subjects to life in a real context it has a huge impact on children’s self-esteem and confidence providing alternative inspiring environments for reading outside or encouraging the use of books for research purposes.

 

Staff are dedicated to advocating the prominence and pleasure of reading by immersing children in stories, shared reading; both individual and whole class and encouraging discussion around books. We are keen for parents to also become involved and support their child’s reading. By letting your child see you read, having fun with words, rhymes and poems, reading together and encouraging children to observe that words are all around us parents and carers can also promote gratification from reading. Whilst early reading is explicitly taught through phonics it is also cohesively interwoven into all aspects of learning across the school curriculum. This all-inclusive approach allows a range of text genres to be explored and expands cross curricular links. From Reception Phonics is taught following the Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds Programme.

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Implementation

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Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

• We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible, including a review of the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

• Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.

• Daily keep up lessons ensure every child learns to read.

• We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:

          - Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.

          - Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

 

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

• · Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.

• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Rapid Catch-up assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace.

• · These short, sharp lessons last 15-20 minutes daily and have been designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.

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Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

·We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:

• are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children

• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sound Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’.

• are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
   

· Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

 

• decoding

• prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression

• comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

• · In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.

• · In Years 2 and 3, we will also be adopting the Year 2 + Fluency programme and will continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

 

Home reading

· The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.

• Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children. We share the research behind the importance and impact of sharing quality children’s books with parents through workshops, leaflets and the Everybody read! resources.

• We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

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Please visit this link for more information on reading with your child: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

 

Additional reading support for vulnerable children

Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.

 

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

● Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.

● Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.

● Lesson templates, Prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.

● The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.

 

Nurturing a culture of reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010) ·

 

We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at South Molton Community Primary School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.

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• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading.

• In Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their continuous provision and the books are continually refreshed.

• Children from Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.

• As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments and keep a list of the books/authors that they have read.

• Each class visits the newly developed library.

• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. It must be booked via the school booking system. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc)

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Impact

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Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it. ·

 

Assessment for learning is used:

• daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support

• weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings. ·

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Summative assessment for Reception and Year 1 is used:

• every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.

• by SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

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Fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They are used:

• in Year 1, when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books

• with children following the Rapid Catch-up programme in Years 2 to 6, when they are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books

• to assess when children are ready to exit their programme.

 

For Year 1 children, this is when they read the final fluency assessment at 60–70+ words per minute. Older children can exit the Rapid Catch-up programme when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute. At these levels, children should have sufficient fluency to tackle any book at age-related expectations. After exiting their programme, children do not need to read any more fully decodable books.

 

· A placement assessment is used:

• with any child new to the school in Reception and Year 1 to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching.
   

· The Rapid Catch-up assessment is used

• with any child new to the school in Year 2 and above to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching.
   

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

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Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through:

• the Rapid Catch-up initial assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan appropriate teaching

• the Rapid Catch-up summative assessments to assess progress and inform teaching

 

We have also implemented the newly introduced Fluency Programme for Year 2 + which will include:

• the Rapid Catch-up fluency assessments when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books for age 7+.

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·The fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They also assess when children are ready to exit the Rapid Catch-up programme, which is when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute.

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