READING AND PHONICS - A DAILY FOCUS
Teaching children to read and to enjoy reading is one of the most important life skills we can give. Immersing children in literature from a young age captures and develops their imagination as well as their creative ability; it informs and teaches them about the world in which they live. We encourage parents to read with their children every day and have a range of wonderful volunteers who come into school each week to listen to the children read and support them with their learning. Our ambition is that children at Peaslake School will all leave confident and articulate readers who enjoy books and know how to use them to find out information.
HOW DO WE TEACH CHILDREN TO READ?
At Peaslake Free School, we teach the Government validated programme, ‘Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds’. The children receive daily lessons following the same format, to encourage a sense of automaticity within their learning. The phonics lessons are pacy and precise, all children have access to the same lessons and those pupils who need extra help receive it on the same day as the sound/tricky word being taught.
RECEPTION AND YEAR ONE READING
Each phonics lesson begins with a ‘revisit and review’ section, recapping previously learnt sounds (phonemes). This is followed by ‘teaching practice sessions’ which include: pronunciation of sounds, new GPCs (grapheme/phoneme correspondence), formation of graphemes, oral blending and independent reading. The phonics sessions also cover learning tricky words, spelling and reading simple sentences.
The children participate in group reading sessions throughout the week that focus on the de-coding, prosody and comprehension of the text. The books the children read, in their practice reading sessions at school and at home, will match the sounds they have been or are being taught to allow for greater consistency. The Little Wandle website (https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/ ) provides excellent guidance and resources for teachers and for parents to support children at school and at home.
All children also take home 2 ‘reading for pleasure’ books chosen from the library each week.
YEAR TWO
The Year 2’s start the year with some revision of the phase 5 phonemes and then move onto the National Curriculum’s spelling programme, which consists of spelling patterns and rules. The children also participate in group reading sessions that focus on de-coding, prosody and comprehension. All children also take home 2 ‘reading for pleasure’ books chosen from the library each week.
READING VOLUNTEERS
At Peaslake Free School, we welcome parents and members of the community into school to spend time with children, sharing a book on a 1:1 basis. Our parents also volunteer once a week to provide a library session where books are chosen.
Learning to read and spell in our English system is a very complex process. We try to make it as fun as possible and give the children time to explore and develop at a pace they feel confident, but at the same time providing challenge to extend their language and thinking skills.
WRITING
Writing is an essential tool for life. We use the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach which enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes. We ensure that the Early Learning Goals and Key Stage One objectives for writing are fully implemented through the following aims and practices, so that the children can successfully use this important tool in all areas of the curriculum and life:
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to achieve fluent, independent and confident writing in all pupils
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to develop children’s understanding of the purposes of writing
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to introduce children to a range of writing formats, styles, purposes and audiences
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to help children write critically, reflectively and imaginatively
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to develop children’s planning, drafting and reviewing skills
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to develop use of and understanding of punctuation and grammar
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to use phonic knowledge and spelling rules
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to demonstrate the links between talking, reading and writing
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to use rich and varied vocabulary
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to develop composition and effect
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to introduce children to rich story literature
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to write across the curriculum and for real purposes
