Reading & Phonics
At Mickle Trafford Village School, we are passionate about embedding a love of reading. We follow the National Curriculum expectations for reading. In order to support us in doing this, we use Read Write Inc Phonics and Read Write Inc Comprehension in EYFS and KS1 while we use The Literacy Company's Pathways To Read in KS2.
EYFS and KS1
We use the Read Write Inc phonics programme to teach reading and phonics in KS1. All children are regularly assessed and grouped according to their current level of phonic knowledge. These groups are fluid and children will move groups as they progress throughout the year. Phonics sessions take place daily and are taught by staff trained specifically in the programme.
We also use the Read Write Inc ‘Fresh Start’ catch-up programme for children in Key Stage 2, who have gaps in their phonic knowledge.
Children who are still accessing daily phonics sessions will bring home two corresponding Read Write Inc books per week, which are closely matched to their current phonic knowledge and as such, should be fully decodable.
The best way to help your child create a love of reading is to share a variety of reading materials as often as you can. We urge you to share stories together at home and develop and embed reading habits. Throughout school. High quality texts are shared daily with your child.
At the end of Year 1, all children take a national test in phonics. This is called the Phonics Screening Check. Our children excel in this and our results are consistently above the national average.
During our RWI lessons, children will:
- Decode letter-sound correspondences quickly and effortlessly, using their phonics knowledge and skills
- Recognise and read common exception words (red words) and identify which part of the word is tricky
- Understand what they read and learn the meaning of new vocabulary
- Read aloud with accuracy, fluency and expression
- Learn to spell by segmenting the sounds in words (using their Fred Fingers)
- Work on letter formation to develop their handwriting
Once children in Year 2 are confident in their sound knowledge and read with good pace and fluency they will begin RWI comprehension sessions daily. Within these sessions children are taught to read aloud with expression and intonation; articulate their thoughts and ideas; identify and explain the sequence of events in texts; communicate their understanding of key aspects of fiction and non-fiction texts; develop their understanding and use of inference and to make predictions on the basis of what they have read so far.
KS2
In KS2, we use The Literacy Company's Pathways To Read in KS2 to support our teaching. This is taught 4 days a week for 30 minutes per day. During these lessons, there will always be an element of the teacher modelling reading aloud so children can learn to become fluent readers. During the week, we provide children with the opportunity to read to/with their partner to ensure that they are further developing their fluency and their partner can check and support them. Every lesson will have some type of vocabulary focus to ascertain and develop our children’s vocabulary. Questioning will focus on developing specific reading skills which are drawn from the National Curriculum and are mapped out progressively across the Key Stage. Within our sessions, children will come across questions referring to:
- Prediction
- Fluency
- Clarifying vocabulary
- Retrieval
- Inference
- Summarising
- Exploring language choices
- Exploring structure and organisation of texts
Reading for Pleasure
As a whole school, we take every opportunity to promote reading as it is an integral part of our whole-school curriculum. Each class has their own author focus each half term in which a selection of books written by that author are available for the children to read. We promote adults reading to each class at least 3 times a week as the benefits of this include helping them build language skills, learn about the world and develop empathy and emotional awareness. Reading together also provides an opportunity for teacher and children to connect. In addition to this, special events are planned across the year to promote reading for pleasure. These events include World Book Day celebrations, Library Bus visits, Library visits and buddy reading across the key stages. We value reading for pleasure as it allows our children the opportunity to use their imagination to explore new ideas, visit new places and meet new characters. Interestingly, it can also improve children's well-being and empathy. Within KS2, we use our 5th reading session to complete an activity based on their own reading of their choice. We offer the children many tasks from book reviews to writing character profiles to designing new front covers and designing posters to advertise their book.
