Reading and Phonics
Early Reading and Phonics Lead – Mrs J Armitage
English Lead - Miss E Sabin
At Laughton All Saints’ C of E Primary School, we are passionate about reading and we feel that reading is at the centre of our curriculum. We believe in the importance of developing children’s phonics skills as early readers, moving onto comprehension skills when children are ready. We are driven to secure children’s love of books and reading.
Phonics and Early Reading
Please click below to read our Early Reading Policy at Laughton All Saints’:
The Headteacher Prioritises Reading
The Headteacher, along with other leaders, prioritises reading at Laughton All Saints’ and recognises the high importance it holds, hence taking on the role of Phonics and Early Reading Lead. She monitors reading regularly to decide priorities in training, analyse data and look at ways forward. Every day, the reading leader will visit phonics lessons to coach reading teachers and check consistency across school. Each week, she meets with the reading teachers to lead a practice session and ensures that all curriculum documentation has a strong focus for providing opportunities for reading across the curriculum.
Love of Reading is Promoted
The love of reading is promoted widely across school. Staff are passionate about reading, which inspires children. Core texts are read daily to children by the teacher. This gives the teacher chance to emphasise their story voice and illustrate their excitement at new stories. The teacher chooses their books using CLPE for guidance - Centre for Literacy in Primary Education - to ensure that the texts are of high quality and age appropriate. Reading corners have been developed to promote a love of reading and opportunities to engage with books. They include a range of phonetically decodable books, according to the classes’ needs, quality novels and non-fiction texts that are changed regularly to maintain interest. Each year group has a set list of 12 texts on a library card that they want children to read by the end of the year. This encourages children to take the books home, therefore improving their vocabulary, fluency and excitement around reading. In addition to this, teachers display recommended books in their book area, to encourage children to want to read them. At Laughton All Saints’, we encourage children to read more at home and certificates are awarded when children have read 30, 60, 90 and 120+ times at home. In our age-appropriate reading diaries, parents are given ideas on how to support children at home with reading. This includes the phonics sounds and comprehension questions.
Content and Sequence Supports Progress
At Laughton All Saints’, all staff are highly trained in delivering the Read, Write, Inc Phonic programme.
Information for parents, relating to the programme, can be found by accessing the following link: www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/
The programme has a strong focus on teaching children to know and remember more. Children are taught daily, in small groups, from Reception upwards. The small groups children are in ensure that all children are taught at their appropriate level, which results in good progress being made. The RWI programme supports the school’s ‘Teach Simply’ model:
- Review/Revisit - Previously taught sounds and words are continuously reviewed and revisited at the beginning of every RWI Phonics lesson.
- Teach Simply – Children are taught a new sound following the same sequence daily.
- Practice - Children have the opportunity to practise reading the sound in words, including multi-syllabic words.
- Apply - Children apply reading their new sounds in alien words and in closely matched, phonically decodable books.
- Assess - Children are regularly assessed by the Phonics Leader. Teachers assess throughout the lesson to check that children understand. ‘Spotlight children’ (children who are not making as much progress as the rest) are sat in the focus of the teacher, to ensure they don’t get left behind.
Although our intention is for children to ‘keep up’, not ‘catch up’, if the Reading Leader identifies that any children are falling behind, plans are immediately put in place to support catch up. If needed, children are also assessed in KS2 to ensure sounds have not been forgotten.
Children in Foundation Stage up to beginning Y2 have RWI Phonics lessons, though some children in Y3 may remain on the programme if needed.
Please click on the grid below to see how we want children to progress through the RWI programme and what we expect them to know by the end of Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2:
Pupils Falling Behind Catch Up Quickly
The Phonics Leader quickly identifies children who are falling behind and discusses them with the class teacher. Children are assessed every half term, but they can be assessed sooner than this, if the Phonics Leader and Reading Teacher thinks this is necessary. The Phonics Leader puts together a support plan for these children and shares these with the teachers and teaching assistants. These support plans include five layers of provision to be put in place for children.
- The daily phonics lesson is taught robustly.
- The child has 1:1 daily phonics tutoring every afternoon. This is delivered by a trained phonics tutor.
- Virtual classroom links (extra phonics lessons) are sent home to parents for extra practice.
- Children are given extra time on an iPad to watch the virtual links in school.
- Teachers have an extra 10 minute phonics lesson in an afternoon.
- ‘Pinny time’ is targeted to specific children at all points of the school day.
Phonics from the Beginning of Reception
Phonics is taught from the very beginning of Foundation Stage 2. If children are ready, some of the sounds are taught from the Summer term of Foundation Stage 1. We believe that a strong start in Reception has a big impact on children’s progress and confidence in reading. By the end of the Foundation Stage, we want children to be able to read all of the Set 1 and Set 2 sounds in words. Children are identified from the beginning if they are falling behind.
Phonically Decodable Books
From Foundation Stage 1, library books are sent home with children. Their focus is language acquisition and listening to stories being read to them. As children begin Read, Write, Inc, children are sent home with sound cards to practise their sounds. When they are secure with their understanding of sounds, children will be given virtual links for games to practise their oral blending. Following this, children will be sent home with sound blending books. When children move into the Ditty group, they will take home two, perfectly matched phonically decodable books home with them. One will be the same book that they are reading in phonics, and the other is an unfamiliar book that matches the sound being learned. This continues until children have moved securely off the programme.
As well as a phonically, decodable book, children will take a quality library book home with them. This is to encourage parents to read to their children and develop their vocabulary. Books are changed weekly, so children have time to practise their phonics sounds, as well as building their fluency. If children struggle with their fluency, there are extra fluency links that can be sent home to support children, as well as classroom interventions.
Staff are Early Reading Experts
All staff at Laughton All Saints’, from nursery to KS2, have been trained in RWI phonics. The Phonics Leader attends half termly training sessions to ensure that she is aware of any updates. This is then relayed back to staff in school. All staff have access to the virtual classroom, where they have a large range of training videos for each aspect of phonics. The Phonics Leader directs staff to training videos and staff are given time to watch them. In addition to this, the Phonics Leader holds weekly training sessions for reading staff. Laughton partakes in RWI Development Days, where a RWI expert visits the lessons and offers bespoke training.
The Reading Diet at Laughton All Saints':
How is reading taught at Laughton?
Reading Content Domain Progression Spiral
Reading Content Domains Progression