Our Vision for Reading

‘Reading is the Key’

At Wilthorpe Primary School, we aim to develop reading skills with our pupils in order to improve their life chances, provide them with life skills and to promote reading for pleasure and enjoyment.

We believe that reading is the key that can open doors for our pupils; it stimulates their imaginations and improves their language and vocabulary skills. We aim to create confident, enthusiastic readers who are keen to discuss books and their interests through independent reading.

Reading for pleasure contributes to educational success, our journey to success focuses on developing a life-long love of reading and equipping our pupils for the next stage on their journey.

How will we achieve our reading vision?

We will ensure that reading is the key in our school by:

• Teaching reading consistently by following the Reading Policy using VIPERS.
• Allowing every child the opportunity to read for pleasure and to follow their own interests e.g. reading buddies,
• Allowing every child the chance to use the library and to borrow books.
• Encouraging reading at home through ‘Read Around the World’ which is closely monitored each week by the class teacher.
• Providing an inviting book corner filled with books that match the ability and interests of our children.
• Offering book fairs, competitions and sponsored reads to create a reading buzz.
• Celebrating key reading events, such as world book day.
• Developing links with poets and authors.
• Teaching writing through a key text wherever possible.
• Offering timely interventions to ensure that every child maintains good progress. 
• Giving every child the opportunity to read to an adult.
• Allowing children to listen to language through daily story or poem time.
• Building partnerships with parents by offering reading workshops and inviting them into school.

Phonics

Our Vision

We aim to deliver high quality phonics lessons in a fun and interactive way, which encourages our children to be more confident and independent learners. They are taught the skills to decode words within their reading, this in turn influences and helps develop their writing at the same time.

At Wilthorpe Primary School we aim to…

• Stimulate the pupils’ interest in and curiosity in reading and phonics.
• Foster a sense of enjoyment and fun in their learning and reading.
• Develop pupils’ knowledge of digraphs and trigraphs which will give them the skills to decode when reading unfamiliar words.
• Encourage pupils to be confident readers with strong practical experiences in using phonics to help them.
• Approach Phonics through a wide range of fast paced, active activities which allow the children to practise and use their skills to read and write words with the sounds they have been learning.

Teaching and Learning of Phonics

Throughout school the phonics teaching is based on the government ‘Letters and sounds’ document. We teach phonics through a fun, fast paced and interactive way which allows all the children to:

• Actively participate regardless of social and economic circumstances, ethnicity, language, or SEN.
• Gain confidence in their decoding skills and enjoy reading for pleasure.

• Use and transfer their phonics skills to a variety of reading and writing activities.

• Have the opportunity to apply what they have learnt in Phonics in their reading and whole class reading sessions

Early Years Foundation Stage

Nursery

The children start on Phase one. This phase involves a wide range of sound discrimination activities which focus on environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body percussion, voice sounds and alliteration.

Reception

Teaching follows on from Phase one taught in Nursery and starts on Phase two. The expectation is that most children will be ready to move onto Phase 3 in the spring term. Phase two introduces letter shapes (graphemes) and relates these to sounds (phonemes). Phase two introduces mainly single letters, while Phase three develops the use of ‘digraphs’ and ‘trigraphs’- two and three letter graphemes, such as the ‘igh’ sound in ‘night’.

Phonics lessons and teaching consists of fun, active and fast paced lessons taught daily from 9:05-9:30. All planning and lessons follow the structure of recapping previously learnt sounds to consolidate, introducing a sound, having a variety of reading opportunities, recognising the sound within different situations and writing opportunities with the sound. The various parts of the lesson have a variety of interactive activities and are fast paced. Phonics is streamed across both Reception classes and some children go into Year one based on their Phonic ability.

Year 1

Phonics teaching in Year 1 follows on from where the children were at the end of EYFS, with opportunities for revision and consolidation following the summer break. Phases three, four and five are covered in detail, with emphasis on application of phonics skills into reading and writing across the curriculum. Phase four builds on the phase three coverage with the addition of adjacent consonants at the beginning and end of words, e.g. fright, toast. In Phase five the children broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes for reading and spelling. They learn new graphemes and alternate pronunciations.

Phonics lessons and teaching consists of fun, active and fast paced lessons taught daily from 9:05-9:30. All planning and lessons follow the structure of recapping previously learnt sounds to consolidate, introducing a sound, having a variety of reading opportunities, recognising the sound within different situations and writing opportunities with the sound. The various parts of the lesson have a variety of interactive activities and are fast paced. Phonics is streamed across Year 1 based on their Phonic ability.  Children take spellings home to practise and consolidate the sounds they have learnt that week within their phonics group.

At the end of Year 1 children are tested on their phonic knowledge using mandatory test materials.

Year 2

Children in Year 2 continue with their phonic learning. Most children re-visit Phase 5 of ‘Letters and sounds’ during the first term of Year 2, but with greater focus on alternative pronunciations. After this Phase six is covered where the children are taught the addition of suffixes and pre-fixes to words e.g. hope- hoping, worry- worried.

Phonics lessons and teaching consists of fun, active and fast paced lessons. Children learn through whole class teaching and independent activities. Children will take home spellings which are tested weekly.

Those children who failed the phonics test at the end of Year 1 will have additional phonics to recap and consolidate the sounds learnt during year one.

Key Stage 2

By the time the children have reached Key Stage 2, most have covered the six phases of Letters and sounds. For those children who are still working within these phases, they have targeted Phonics intervention lessons to revisit and develop their phonic knowledge and understanding. These interventions are based on half termly assessments which identify the next steps needed in the children’s learning.

All intervention planning and lessons follow the structure of recapping previously learnt sounds to consolidate, introducing a sound, having a variety of reading opportunities, recognising the sound within different situations and writing opportunities with the sound. The various parts of the lesson have a variety of interactive activities and are fast paced. Phonics is streamed across year groups based on their Phonic ability.