Curriculum -  Reading

We teach the key skills of English (as a spoken language, reading and writing) discretely in literacy and in context through our carefully planned topic work. Our aim is to inspire children to read and write independently, skilfully and with pleasure.

Reading covers a range of skills, the first being word reading. This is taught through daily Phonics lessons where children learn to orally hear and say the sounds in words, match sounds to their graphemes (letters, digraphs and trigraphs) and use these skills to blend to read and segment to spell words. Children are also taught to recognise similarities in word structures and make spelling choices. Recall of key words and sight vocabulary is also taught in line with the age related stages of the National Curriculum.

Through our daily English lessons, Short burst story sessions and class storytimes we encourage children to take delight in stories and other books, and develop a progressively deeper understanding of what has been read. We encourage children to discuss what has been read and share thoughts, opinions and ideas about texts.

All this supports children in their own comprehension of a range of texts and sets them off into a world where they appreciate and enjoy a positive relationship with the written word.

Programme Progression

Reading Books

Reading books are fully phonetically decodable and linked to each child’s RWI phonics group. This allows children to take home the book they are reading in their daily phonics lessons, reinforcing their learning and allowing them to develop their fluency and pace. Alongside their RWI book children take home a RWI Book-bag book and a shared book of their choice which can be read with an adult (These are labelled as shared books as they may have words that they an not fully decode yet.)

Children who have progressed beyond the RWI phonics program and are competent fluent readers are able to take home a Free-reading book of their choice.  

The Phonics Screening Check

The National Phonics Screening Check is performed in June of Year 1. The purpose of the screening check is to confirm that all children have learned phonic decoding to an age-appropriate standard. The children who did not meet the required standard for the check in year 1 enter again in year 2 with additional support.