At Easebourne we aim to develop the full potential of all our pupils as confident and enthusiastic readers. If children are to develop as competent readers and writers it is vitally important that they have a secure understanding of letter sounds and the spelling system of the English language.
We believe that teaching children to read and write independently is one of our core purposes, enabling them to access our broad and exciting curriculum to ensure they continue to flourish as learners.
There are opportunities throughout the year for children to showcase their love of reading including the Poetry by Heart competition and the local library services Summer Reading Challenge.
Implementation
At Easebourne, we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery and only follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
We also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.
At Easebourne, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.
Foundations for Phonics in Nursery
We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:
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sharing high-quality stories and poems
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learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
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activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
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attention to high-quality language.
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We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.
Reception and Year 1
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We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
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Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
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Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
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Children in Year 1 review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
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Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
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We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Rapid Catch-up assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace.
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These short, sharp lessons last 15-20 minutes daily and have been designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.
Reading Practise
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We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
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are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of children
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use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’.
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are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
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Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
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decoding
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prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
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comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
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In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
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In Years 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.
Home reading
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The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.
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Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children. We share the research behind the importance and impact of sharing quality children’s books with parents through workshops, leaflets and the Everybody read! resources.
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We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision
Ensuring consistency and pace of progress
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Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
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Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
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Lesson templates, Prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
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The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.
Ensuring reading for pleasure
‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)
‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)
We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.
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We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children in our school and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
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In Nursery and Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
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Each class has a library session timetabled for once a week. Our Nursery has a book bus to visit.