English
'The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.'
At Normanton All Saints CE (A) Infant School we highly value reading and understand that reading is fundamental to function in today’s society. Reading is a life skill that needs to be taught, nurtured and developed. Enjoying books and reading stories from a very early age is crucial in reading development and therefore this begins with our youngest children in our nursery setting.
We value that reading teaches children about the world around them, develops imagination and enables them to understand and use a wide range of words. We understand the need for children to gain good phonics knowledge alongside an understanding of vocabulary and comprehension in order for them to become confident and fluent readers.
Reading has a unique contribution to learning as it enables children to be successful in all other areas of the curriculum. Therefore, the teaching of reading is given a high priority throughout the school with all staff recognising the importance of teaching skills thoroughly and instilling positive attitudes towards reading.
Time in the school day is dedicated to story time where children have the opportunity to listen to a story read to them by an adult who brings the book to life through our ‘magic of stories’ approach. These books are carefully chosen to provide an engaging and enjoyable experience and aims to develop a love of reading. Initiatives such as the class reader of the week, our top 5 and top 20 texts, reading cafes, parent and child story time and weekly visits to the school library continue to promote reading for pleasure. High-quality books and texts are used to drive the curriculum and each classroom has an inviting and engaging reading area to promote a further love for reading.
Teaching reading
We teach reading through:
· Structured daily phonics and additional ‘keep up’ for children requiring this.
· Group guided reading practice and reading fluency sessions
· Listening to pupils read individually.
· Reading for pleasure through dedicated story time.
The school’s reading scheme consists of:
· Collins Big Cat for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised
· Home readers- Phonetically decodable book
· Free readers for pupils who are secure with their phonics and can read with accuracy and fluency
Reading at home
We encourage all our pupils to read regularly at home. Children will bring home books which are matched to the stage of their reading development.
Children will work through a phonetically decodable reading scheme starting in Reception. When children are assessed to be phonetically secure they then move on to free readers. The aim of our reading scheme is to ensure that:
· Children are applying their phonic knowledge to words and sentences.
· Children have the opportunity to read tricky words/high-frequency words linked to their current phase in phonics.
· Children work through a progressive scheme that links to their understanding of phonic sounds.
· Children are not asked to read words with sounds they do not know and they are not asked to guess words.
For early and developing readers phonics books will be sent home linked to the letters and sounds which have been taught. This book will have been introduced to the children in class during their guided practice sessions and the children will have read this text at least three times in school. This will allow them to read this book at home with increased confidence and fluency and to celebrate reading success. The home reader books also allow the children the opportunity to practise reading words by blending and segmenting, enabling them to gain secure phonic knowledge.
As pupils become confident and fluent in their reading and once they have a secure phonic knowledge they will then be provided with a large range of books from other publishers known as ‘free readers’. This will further develop children’s knowledge, vocabulary, language and comprehension enabling them to continue to read for pleasure.
Please see the Reading Flyer for further information about our home reading scheme.
Our writing
curriculum is built on the foundations of a high-quality systematic and
synthetic phonics programme, an enriched reading curriculum and also
well-planned opportunities for talk. The teaching of writing is based around
ensuring that our children master the fundamentals of writing: letter
formation, spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. These skills will then
be continuously practised and built upon until they are fluent. Writing is an
important part of the phonics teaching which ensures children are spelling
tricky words and also learning spelling patterns and rules which can then be
applied to independently write words. Teachers, especially those in the
earliest stages, are dedicated to ensuring that children secure basic skills which
will allow them to become confident and fluent writers.
Our writing
curriculum is based around high quality texts and authors, which are carefully
selected and chosen to allow children to experience ambitious vocabulary which
they can develop through talk within our writing sequence. In Key Stage 1 writing
is taught through a carefully considered three-phase sequence: Inspire, Dictate
and Create. In the ‘Inspire’ stage, children will be introduced to the high-quality
text in an immersive way that provides a ‘hook’ for the children. Throughout
this phase, children will have opportunities to develop their talk and language
skills through discussion, role play and re-telling of the story. During the
‘Dictate’ phase, teachers will have pre-planned sentences linked to the story
that match their phonic knowledge. Within this phase there will be lots of
opportunities for high-quality teacher modelling. Children will practise saying
their sentences before writing them and the aim of this phase is accuracy. Children
will receive individual feedback to enable them to further refine and improve
their writing. In the final ‘Create’ phase, teachers will model how to plan
improvements to their writing, using their sentences from the previous week.
This will be done by changing key words, adding adjectives or additional
information to create their revised sentence.
Handwriting
As a school we
understand the importance of children being able to form letters correctly in
order to support their writing fluency. From Upper Foundation Stage, children
will have a daily taught handwriting lesson following the Little Wandle Letters
and Sounds handwriting programme. In the initial stages, children follow the
pattern programme which allows children to practise their early mark making as
well as practising the shapes and directions that will be needed to form
letters. Within handwriting lessons, children will be taught the importance of
correct pencil grip and posture. Children will then be taught a new letter each
day. The letters are taught in their letter families because the common features of the starting points and direction
help to reduce the cognitive load, making correct letter formation automatic. When children are
accurate with their formation of letters they will be taught to form their
letters in the pre-cursive style in preparation for them learning to join their
letters in the cursive style. Our Year 2 pupils have the opportunity to earn
their ‘pen licence’ once they have mastered accurate and fluent handwriting.
The development of children’s phonics is a key skill that impacts on their progress as a reader and a writer. It is through their knowledge of phonics that children can read and write unfamiliar words by saying the sounds which match the letters in the words and then blending the sounds together.
Aims
- Through a strong focus on the teaching of phonics we aim:
- To provide all children with a systematic and synthetic approach to teaching phonics which ensures all children achieve.
- To teach children all of the sounds (including alternative pronunciations) included in each phase of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.
- To teach children how to orally blend spoken sounds to pronounce words.
- To read words by segmenting the sounds in a word and then blending the sounds back together.
- To write words by writing each of the sounds they can hear in a word.
- That children by the end of Year One will have developed a secure knowledge of all phonics sounds in order to develop as fluent readers to access and enjoy a range of books.
- To quickly identify children who need extra support and provide extra practice to enable them to keep up.
Structure of phonics and resources to teach phonics
Pupils across the school have a daily phonics session, which follows the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised structure of Revisit and Review, Teach and Practise, Practise and Apply and Guided Practice (reading a decodable book). Phonics is taught on a morning immediately after the daily register and will last for 20 minutes in Upper Foundation Stage and 25-30 minutes in Year One. Children in Year Two who require additional phonics teaching also receive this in a small group session.
Revisit and Review – The children have the opportunity to re-cap sounds that have already been taught to them. They will then have the opportunity to practise reading words containing familiar sounds. The children will then practise reading the tricky words that are linked to their current stage in the phonics progression.
Teach and Practise – The new sound of the day is explicitly taught.
The new sound of the day will be taught and children will have the opportunity to practise orally segmenting and blending words alongside reading words containing the sound. During this time teachers will further support understanding by giving examples and definitions of some of the words in a sentence. A new tricky word will then be introduced and children will practise reading the word.
Practise and Apply – The children are given the opportunity to practise using the new sound, by reading and writing words/sentences containing this sound. The children will then further apply this sound by writing further words containing the sound of the day and a previously taught tricky word.
Guided Practice – Applying known sounds in fully decodable books.
During phonics teaching, we use phonics books (Collins Big Cat – Little Wandle for Letter and Sounds revised) to support children in applying their phonic knowledge to words and sentences by segmenting and blending sounds together. These phonics books are linked to the secure sounds that your child knows. In school children will be listened to read in a small group 3 times a week. Each time the group will be focusing on a different reading skill; fluency, prosody (readers voice) and comprehension (understanding the book). Once children have completed their three reads in school they will be bringing this book home to read and share with you. This is a time to celebrate reading success with your child and share a love of reading together.
The reading lead will oversee the teaching of phonics and the delivery of the programme by monitoring the impact of this and by coaching and training the staff.
The school follows the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Programme. Further information about this phonics programme can be found at: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Further information about the progression of phonics from Upper Foundation (Reception) to the end of Year 1 is available via this pdf.
Phonics in the classroom environment
There will be consistent phonics displays across the classrooms. Each classroom will display tricky words relevant to the age group and all the phonics sounds which are taught in that year group. There will be a specific reference to the sound taught that day on the display. High-quality phonic resources from Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised will be also available including sound flash cards, word flash cards and also other resources to support with spelling such as word cards, colour mats. Phonics learning lines and working walls will display the taught sounds for the week and will be added to throughout the week with words containing that sound. Each classroom area will have a well organised and stocked reading area with high-quality books which the children can access. Phonics books will also be displayed in this area to provide pupils with a further opportunity to read independently the sound taught.
Interventions in phonics
Daily phonics interventions through regular and short keep up sessions will take place for identified pupils who require additional support. This will follow the same structure as above and will be a familiar routine to the children. Intervention will focus on targeted pupils identified through recent assessments and will be based around sounds that the pupils do not know whilst also recapping sounds they do know to ensure they can achieve success. Additional phonics intervention will be delivered to targeted pupils through daily phonics breakfast clubs. This will focus on sounds which pupils are unfamiliar with or are not fully secure with. The breakfast clubs will be led by trained teaching assistants who will regularly communicate with teachers regarding pupil progress.
Assessment of phonics
Phonics assessments will take place to assess pupils’ knowledge of the sounds that have been taught throughout the focused phase. It will also assess children’s decoding skills as they read unfamiliar words by applying their phonics or familiar words accurately. From the assessments, teachers will quickly identify the pupils who require further support and they will be provided with a targeted intervention. Daily assessment through the ‘speedy sounds’ using flash cards will also take place by the teacher and teaching assistant. The reading lead will oversee the assessment of phonics and will analyse data and will monitor the impact of interventions.
Phonics screening check
The phonics screening check is an assessment for the pupils in Year One which takes place during the final summer term. The check assesses the children’s ability to segment and blend words effectively by reading a series of real and non-words (‘alien words’). The check takes place on a one to one basis with the child and their class teacher. Results are submitted and parents are informed whether their child has met the required standard or not. Any child who does not meet the required standard in Year One will have the opportunity to re-take the check the following year during Year Two.
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