Phonics & Reading
– curriculum information

At Smawthorne Henry Moore Academy we believe that Reading underpins a successful journey in education. Reading is a fundamental part of the #SmawthorneExperience and we aim to nurture an exciting and challenging approach throughout the subject. We encourage our children to pick up a book and ‘get lost’ within it, fostering a ‘Love of Reading’ that will grow within each individual.

From Nursery to Year 6, children are given vast opportunities to learn through literature and to read for enjoyment and pleasure; whether it be a picture, novel or factual book. Through reading we encourage ‘book talk’ where children can freely share their opinion and discuss their own interpretations surrounding the text they have read. Reading opens a door to a wealth of vocabulary, enhancing word knowledge which can then be applied through other curriculum areas.

Reading Intent Statement

Through our reading curriculum at Smawthorne Henry Moore Academy, we aim to ensure our children:

• Apply phonic knowledge and skills to decode words until automatic decoding has become embedded and reading is fluent.
• Read common exception words on sight.
• Accurately read books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge.
• Re-read books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading.
• Understand and discuss both what they read and what is read to them by predicting, summarising, inferring and asking and answering questions.
• Become familiar with a range of texts, including key stories, fairy stories and traditional tales.
• Learn to appreciate rhymes and poems, performing to an audience.
• Develop positive attitudes and stamina towards reading.
• Value reading as both a pleasurable activity and one which enables them to build on their understanding of the world and acquire new knowledge.
• Enjoy sharing books with others and develop their own reader identity.

Implementation:

At Smawthorne Henry Moore Academy, we recognise that reading underpins everything that we do and unlocks a world of opportunity for our children. Reading is at the core of all learning, therefore a priority in our school.

Reading is essential to access the primary school curriculum, but for all learning beyond this too. As a skill necessary for life-long learning, reading provides endless possibilities and opportunities for improvement and as a pleasure takes us to people and places that we can only dream about, through the world of imagination.

We teach reading at our school based on the five essential components needed to develop fluent, confident readers:

• Phonemic awareness – the ability to hear, identify, move or change sounds (phonemes), in spoken words
• Phonics – recognising the link between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes) to decode words
• Fluency – the ability to read accurately, quickly and with expression
• Vocabulary – knowing the meaning of words to help in order to understand what they are reading
• Comprehension – understanding and interpreting what has been read.

In Early Years and KS1, the proven systematic synthetics phonics programme, Read Write Inc provides a rigorous and systematic approach to the teaching of reading.

In addition, children in our nursery setting have ‘Magic of Stories’ sessions to help build a love of story and language. This continues through into reception and KS1 where children take part in ‘Talk Through Story’ sessions to bring books to life and deepen their understanding of new vocabulary in context.

In KS2 children read a range of class novels, focussing on one specifically each term.  This book is read daily as a class and Reading lessons are completed every day where sections of the books are zoomed into further develop fluency and comprehension.  The books chosen follow a long-term plan which incorporates a range of genres and age-related texts that progressively get more challenging each term.

Reading is taught as a whole class approach which allows for the children to be heard read by their teacher on a daily basis.

In addition, each class has a dedicated Reading for Pleasure session timetabled each day and has the opportunity to visit the school library weekly to help develop their reader identity.

Phonics: The Best Start

Phonics teaching starts in nursery, with our youngest learners. In reception, the teaching of phonics starts in Week 1 with the children learning Set 1 sounds from the Read Write Inc. systematic programme. Sounds are taught in a set order and regular assessment informs groupings and interventions.

Programme and Progress

At Smawthorne Henry Moore, we use the Read Write Inc (RWI) programme to get children off to a flying start with Reading. RWI is a phonic based approach to teaching reading that involves children learning sounds (phonemes) and their corresponding grapheme.

Through practise the children are then able to recognise and read the graphemes at pace, blending them together to read words through a successful reading programme that enables every child to become a confident and fluent reader. It aims to teach all children to read at a pace that they are comfortable with.

In the first instance, children learn 44 sounds (speed sounds). There are the letter sounds and not letter names, and they then learn to blend these sounds together to make words. After they are confidently able to read words with these 44 sounds, they will then learn alternative ways of making sounds too (i.e. ay, a-e, ai).

Children are taught to ‘Fred in their head’ to quickly decode words, promoting on sight reading. When a child becomes very quick at this they develop their fluency and in turn will begin to read with expression and understanding.

Keep up, not Catch up

Children’s progress is regularly monitored through half-termly assessments with the Read Write Inc. leader. Children are grouped into phonics groups depending on their ‘stage and not age’ to allow them to work at their level. Children who are not making expected progress are identified and intervention sessions are put in place to ensure they make progress. Assessment of these children is completed more regularly to ensure the sessions are impactful. Some children in KS2 can remain on the Read Write Inc programme to ensure that they have acquired all of the skills needed to become a fluent and competent reader.

Early Reading Expertise

Our Read Write Inc, ‘reading leader’ is working closely with Read Write Inc trainers and carries out weekly training and practice sessions for all staff who teach Read Write Inc sessions, including support staff and sets up CPD when required. Our reading leader regularly monitors the delivery of phonics and reading and provides support if necessary. Smawthorne Henry Moore Academy, recently graduated from the Jerry Clay English Hub who are also part of the Accomplish MAT.

Books match sounds

To ensure children have sufficient practice of the reading skills taught through the rigorous RWI programme, they access home reading books in the Early Years and KS1 which closely match the phonics stage individual to the child.

Children in the Early Years and KS1 are given a home reading, ‘Book Bag Book’ which is matched to your child’s phonics ability. – this book provides children with the opportunity to develop their fluency. It builds upon the ideas and many of the words in the Storybook he or she has read in school. Your child may need some support in reading this book. Children are encouraged to read this book at least three times at home during the week and, as children re-read the stories, their fluency increases.

Becoming Fluent Readers

In KS2 children complete fluency and comprehension lessons each week. In fluency sessions, children are taught vocabulary instruction initially, where words in context are given meaning and then they are read part of the class text in which the vocabulary occurs. Children are guided to follow the text and annotate it, applying a specific skill on the second read. The skill could be accuracy, the intonation of specific words or the speeding up/slowing down of the text. Children are then instructed to read the section that they have heard to a partner, turn taking to develop their individual fluency.

Once the weekly fluency lessons have been taught, comprehension lessons are delivered to develop a child’s understanding of what they have read. Within these sessions, reading teachers, talk the children through the text, using their thinking aloud voice to model the process of comprehending by drawing on the vocabulary and their own life experiences. The children’s understanding is assessed through quick question recall and then deeper questioning where they need to make inferences using the information supplied in the text.

Children’s progress is regularly monitored and bespoke teaching and interventions are used where required.

Promoting a love of reading

We strive to develop a love for reading at Smawthorne Henry Moore Academy.

• All classes are read to daily, and it is made a priority to share this story each day.
• Our daily English lessons are inspired by a text and we ensure we look at a range of inspiring fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts to expose children to new and different texts that they might enjoy.
• We have Reading Ambassadors who take ownership of pop-up displays around school as well as run the school library over lunch break. 
• We celebrate World Book Day annually and subscribe to author events to promote wider reader by our children.
• We change and update book nooks around the school to give books the showcase that they deserve and the children, opportunities to read as many books as possible.
• Children are able to share their choices of books and we encourage them to be active participants when choosing new books for school.
• We hold events through the phases to encourage parents to share books with us such as Story Stay and Play sessions in Early Years and the Reading Café in KS1.
• Book fairs are a termly occurrence which allows parents to come into school and purchase books which then enables the school to further enhance our catalogue of texts.

Curriculum information: