How do we teach Phonics?
At St Mary’s, we believe that language is fundamental to all aspects of children’s home and school life. It is a subject in its own right but is also a key ingredient for gaining access to the whole school curriculum. Communication, both oral and written, is the key to educational progress. Through our literacy teaching, we aim to develop children's competence as listeners, talkers, readers and writers so that they can live, work and succeed in a literate world. All the skills of language enable children to participate fully as a member of society.
Our programme of phonics and word-recognition development begins as part of our Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. In Reception, phonics is initially taught through introducing the phase 1 letter sounds and formation of letter shapes, using the Government approved Read Write Inc. resources and materials. Once children are secure in phase 1, they move onto phase 2 and then phase 3. Phases support the children in blending, encoding and decoding, building their fluency, expression and letter formation as each stage is taught. Towards the latter phases, children practise using their sound knowledge to write, focussing on using the taught sounds to spell accurately.
Each child in Reception and in Key Stage 1 takes home a decodeable reading book (book bag book), linked to the phonics sound that they are learning. Parents are expected to read these books at home with their child and record this in their child's reading record, as a valued commitment to our home/school partnership.
To support parents we run an annual reading workshop, where we teach the sounds, share the phases and inform them of the expectations for the end of each Key Stage.
How do we teach Reading?
To compliment our phonics teaching we have a wide variety of books, which provide a structured approach to reading throughout the school. Our reading material is mainly Read write Inc and Oxford Reading Tree and when our children become 'free readers' they have well-stocked fiction and non-fiction books to choose from in their classrooms and in the school library, which the children visit regularly as part of a timetabled session.
Early reading is supported within the classroom by one to one reading with an adult, class teaching lessons and phonic sessions. As a child’s reading progresses from early reading they begin to move through the reading scheme at their own pace and developmental understanding. The reading scheme book bands are structured to encourage children to read for longer periods of time and to begin to ask and answer questions about what they have read and what they have understood. The phonics scheme used in school (Read Write Inc) incorporates reading comprehension where children are posed questions based on the text as well as discussing new words and their meanings.
As the children become more confident readers they participate in group reading sessions where they can enjoy stories poems and non-fiction, often linked to the topic areas. The books are used to teach specific reading skills and enable the children to develop language and ideas for their own writing. In addition to this, teachers regularly read to the children just for pleasure and enjoyment to foster a love of reading. The school’s overall objective is to nurture a love of reading and for each child to become a fluent and confident reader.