English – Reading

Reading:

Substantive knowledge:

We aspire to promote a culture of positivity and enjoyment surrounding reading in our school so that children develop a thirst for reading. Through carefully planned objectives, children are supported to develop their word recognition and comprehension throughout their journey through school.  Aiming for our pupils to leave school as skilled readers, we focus on the building blocks of reading: syntax, context, vocabulary, knowledge of narrative structure, prosody and fluency.

Disciplinary knowledge:

With a strong focus on Phonics – through Little Wandle – in Nursery, Reception and Key Stage One, children are developing firm foundations to become more fluent readers. Throughout KS2, pupils continue to develop their fluency through targeted phonics sessions and the Reading Plus programme. The use of Guided Reading and reading texts within our writing sessions across the school, promotes and refines comprehension skills to ensure children can understand texts in their reading lessons, whilst also applying this to the wider curriculum so they can research and know more about a topic. With a focus on learning new vocabulary across the school, children will broaden their vocabulary and apply this to their writing. Through dialogic talk, children are able to discuss, evaluate and build-upon ideas to encourage our learners to become critical readers. We are developing more confident readers who will use these skills for life-long learning and to support them in the wider world.

Phonics

Substantive knowledge:

In Phonics and Early Reading, substantive knowledge is the ability to decode and sight read words. This allows children opportunities to read for pleasure, including reading and reciting poetry, and develop their vocabulary. Children are then able to apply their knowledge of reading strategies to comprehend a range of texts. Our goal is for children to learn to read so that they can read to learn and read for pleasure.

Disciplinary knowledge:

In Phonics and Early Reading, the disciplinary knowledge is delivered through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.

Children in Nursery begin their journey into reading with our Foundations to Phonics programme. During these sessions children develop their focused listening and attention and oral blending skills. Children play games with sounds and this ensures that they are ‘tuned into’ sounds when they begin Phase 2.

In Reception through repeated practice of the Grapheme Phoneme Correspondences  (GPC), children then learn to orally blend and finally decode and blend written words.

In Year One children are exposed to a wider range of alternative phonemes and use these to make their spelling more accurate.

Across the Little Wandle programme children learn to use the phonemes to read words, sentences and make spelling choices. Children build their reading fluency through repeated practice of decodable words and building reading stamina.