At Byker Primary School, we believe that literacy and communication are key life skills and that it is our role, through our broad and rich curriculum, to help children develop the skills and knowledge that will enable them to communicate effectively and creatively with the world at large, through spoken and written language. Through a love of reading that is shared across our school, we strive to ensure all children enjoy and appreciate literature and its rich variety.

The teaching of English follows the programmes of study set out in the National Curriculum. It is rooted in the Literature Works approach. Quality engaging children’s literature is chosen to support and extend progress in reading and provide writing opportunities across a range of genres and forms. Opportunities for teachers to enhance pupils’ vocabulary and understanding of English grammatical conventions arise naturally from this creative, stimulating and engaging approach to reading and writing.

As a school, we aim to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping children with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading both across the curriculum and at home. As a school, we aim to ensure that all pupils aspire to achieve and are therefore able to:

• read easily, fluently and with speed

• develop strong comprehensions skills so that children can draw on mental models to make sense of what they have read

• develop a love of reading and the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information

• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language

• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage

• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas

• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

 

Phonics Programme and Reading Schemes in Early Years and KS1

Reading

Our school reading policy is based upon a well-established body of evidential research that proves the benefits for children of reading for pleasure for both educational purposes as well as personal development. We recognise the distinction between learning to read and reading to learn and understand the importance of structuring the teaching of reading appropriately through Early Years, Key Stage 1 to lower Key Stage 2.

Early Reading

At Byker Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Read Write Inc, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Byker Primary, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Foundations for phonics in Nursery

We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. 

These include:

• sharing high-quality stories and poems
• learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
• activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
• attention to high-quality language.
• We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

Children make a strong start in Reception. Phonics teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.

We follow the Read Write Incs expectations of progress:

• Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
• Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

 

Extra Support

• Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read
• Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Read Write Inc assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace. 
• If any child in Year 3 or 4 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:

• are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups 
• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Read Wreite Inc Revised assessments and book matching grids 
• are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

1. decoding
2. prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
3. comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

 

In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books. In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practice reading with decodable books.

Home reading

A decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.

Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.

We use the Read Write Inc parents resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

We encourage all parents and carers to read daily at home with their child. Classes will have different arrangements for changing books which are shared with parents and carers. Reading diaries are used to record engagement in home reading and share children’s progress through the book band levels.

Additional 1:1 or small group reading support for vulnerable children

Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

• Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
• Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
•  Lesson templates, Prompt cards and How to videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
• The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

• We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Byker Primary School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.
•  In Nursery/Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
• Children from Nursery/Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.
• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc).

You can find a useful phonics audio guide to all these sounds on the Read, Write, Inc Phonics made easy page.

 oxfordowl.co.uk

Phonics screening guide for parents

At the end of Year 1, all children have to undertake the Year 1 Phonics Screening. Working 1:1 with their teacher, children will read 40 words, some of which are real and some of which are pseudo words (nonsense/’alien’ words) containing the 40+ phonemes they have learnt throughout Early Years and Year 1. Children will receive a mark and parents will be notified at the end of the year if this meets the expected standard. Those children who do not will receive extra phonics support in Year 2 and will take the screening at the end of the following year.