Reading and Phonics
Intent
At Quadring Primary School we believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to develop a lifelong love of reading.
At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through a carefully designed curriculum that utilises engaging, imaginative stories and high quality, thought provoking texts across the curriculum.
Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps and to target the highest possible number of children attaining the expected standard or higher.
We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves, persevere and pursue success to enable them to become fluent, independent readers through ‘learning together’.
Implementation
At Quadring Primary School we follow the synthetic phonics programme Jolly Phonics. This programme is a method of learning letter sounds along with an action and a rhyme progressing into blending them together to read and write words. This is supported by a comprehensive range of reading books which have been organised and levelled according to the phonics sounds contained within the book.
The teaching of phonics begins from the start of EYFS and progresses through KS1 and is implemented in the form of daily phonics lessons. Each phoneme/grapheme is continuously recapped and reinforced in all reading and writing across the curriculum.
Children who have not met the required standard for phonics in Year 1 or 2 have tailored daily phonics sessions either individually or in small group sessions. This continues throughout Key Stage 2 as necessary. Through having a weekly spelling focus and spelling lessons and tests, KS2 teachers regularly recap phonics and spelling knowledge with children.
In addition to intervention sessions being provided for the technical aspects of reading, intervention sessions are also provided to support children who have difficulty with reading comprehension or have specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia.
We believe that regular reading at home is an important tool in developing reading skills. Across the school, children experience a wide breadth of reading opportunities across different genres. Books are levelled according to the progression of the order of phonics being taught. In EYFS and KS1, levelled books are used for home-reading to ensure that children have books that match the phonics level they are at.
In KS2, children continue to use the KS1 reading books, if appropriate, to support their phonics development. When they are ready, they become ‘free readers’. In Year 3/4 the books remain grouped according to level of difficulty; in Year 5/6, the books are mixed in order to promote independence. Recommending books to each other is very much encouraged for all children (and adults).
All children have a reading book and are expected and encouraged to read every day. They also have a reading record. Parents/carers are encouraged to read with their children or listen to their children read and then sign the reading record every day, making comments where appropriate, and this is checked by a member of staff every morning. Where children do not read at home, staff facilitate extra reading sessions in the school day.
Children work through the wide variety of books at their own pace. Teachers monitor their progress and determine when best for children to move onto the next series, ensuring that a range of titles and genres have been explored and understood.
From Year 1, children follow a ‘Reading Challenge’ system and receive rewards for books they have read.
At Quadring Primary, all classes complete a range of reading activities throughout the week. These include guided reading sessions, reading comprehension tasks, independent reading, shared reading and listening to teachers reading a whole class book.
High quality texts and passages are chosen, appropriate to the expectations of the year group or ability of children, and teachers use this to model the application of the agreed reading skills. Children are taught to notice breakdown in reading - identifying words/phrases they don’t understand and strategies to fix breakdown in meaning. Children are taught to relate the text to themselves, previous reading experiences and the world around them.
Further to modelled sessions, children have the opportunity to read texts with greater independence and apply their skills when responding to the wide range of domain questions. More complex questions are evaluated between wider groups and teachers model how to refine answers to a high standard.
A range of reading opportunities are provided across the curriculum, exposing children to a wide range of quality texts whilst providing context to learning and encouraging reading for pleasure.
Our reading scheme ensures children are offered high-quality books that reflect the diversity of our modern world.
Appropriate support, provision and adaptations will be made to ensure that any gaps are addressed for all children.
Impact
As we believe that reading is key to all learning, the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter the wide and varied magical worlds that reading opens up to them. As they develop their own interest in books, a deep love of literature across a range of genres cultures and styles is enhanced.
Through the teaching of systematic phonics and reading enquiry, our children will become fluent and confident readers who are able to apply their knowledge and experience to a range of texts through the Key Stage 2 curriculum and beyond.
Through our high expectations and aspirations, our Year 6 children transition into secondary school as fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure and enjoyment, as well as using their reading skills to unlock learning and all areas of the curriculum.
In addition to this: