Our Approach to the Teaching of Reading

All children are heard to read on a weekly basis by a Teacher or a Teaching Assistant.  In Reception, children read individually to an adult to support them in developing their early reading skills and their confidence.  In Years 1 to 6, children read as part of a Guided Reading Group where there is the opportunity to share, discuss and interpret a text.  In KS1 there is also an emphasis on learning how to read words and sentences.

Reading skills are taught regularly through English lessons and in Reception and KS1 as part of a daily synthetic phonics session.  Children learn; phonemes (the sound a letter/letters make), graphemes (the letters that represent those sounds), how to segment and blend the sounds in a word to be able to read and to spell it, and then how to apply these skills to read and write sentences.  Children also learn commonly used (high frequency) words and words that can’t be sounded out (tricky words).  These are taught through speaking and listening, reading and writing games, activities and songs.
 
We aim to base all of our learning around a quality text.  Teachers will select a text which is linked to the topic that the class are focussing on and use this to plan engaging tasks which link reading and writing.  The emphasis is on developing a love of reading and, through discussion, allowing children to develop their vocabulary through writing.
 
Each class has a dedicated time each day for the class teacher to share a book with the class.  

Details of our Reading Schemes

Reading schemes currently used to support guided reading in school and/or provided for home reading are:

Sails Foundation
Dandelion Readers
Rigby Star
Oxford Reading Tree
Project X
Tree Tops

Phonics

Children in Reception and KS1 are taught phonics on a daily basis using the Soundswrite programme.  This continues beyond KS1 for those children who require additional support.