Parent information

The best primary schools in England teach virtually every child to read, regardless of the social and economic circumstances of their neighbourhoods, the ethnicity of their pupils, the language spoken at home and most special educational needs or disabilities (Reading by the Age of 6.)

At St Thomas’ we believe that all pupils can achieve in Reading. We do not put ceilings on what pupils can achieve and we do not hold pre-conceptions about any pupils’ ability to make progress. We believe through reading, pupils will have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. We know that high-quality phonic teaching secures the crucial skills of word recognition that, once mastered, enable children to read fluently and automatically. Once children are fluent readers, they are able to concentrate on the meaning of the text. Children need to acquire secure and automatic decoding skills and progress from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’ for purpose and pleasure.

Our intent is:

• for children at St. Thomas’ to be confident and independent readers by the end of KS1.  We want to establish consistent, high quality practice, progression and continuity in the teaching and learning of phonics and spelling throughout the school. (see Spelling Policy)
• to ensure pupils read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• that children can work out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar words (decoding)
• that our children can speedily recognise familiar printed words (High Frequency / Tricky / Common Exception Words)
• that our children understand that the letter on the page represent the sounds in spoken words.
• that all children receive quality phonics teaching in the EYFS, Key Stage One.

That the process of recap, revisit and recall is embedded into all phonics and reading lessons, to ensure long-term retention of skills and information to aid pupils in later life and empower them for life beyond St. Thomas’.

Implementation:

Subject Leadership / Subject Knowledge:

• All teachers and assistants are given support and training to deliver phonics lessons and interventions in early years, Key Stage One and Key Stage Two.
• Phonics delivery is monitored and assessed regularly by the senior leadership team, ensuring a consistent approach and identifying any gaps through pupil progress meetings termly.
• CPD sessions are conducted to give teachers the continuity and progression of skills across Key stages and phases.
• Training is given to equip teachers and TAs with the necessary skills to model, scaffold and question pupils to achieve a deeper level of understanding and vocabulary.

Equitable delivery: (see scheme of work for expectations and timetable of delivery)

Word Reading (Phonics)

• Daily phonics lessons in EYFS for 15-20 minutes each day.
• Reception focus on phases 2,3 and 4
• Year 1 consolidation of previous phases and a focus on phase 5
• Year 2 focus on phase 6
• Key Stage Two assessments in phonics and reading to enable intervention or catch up for children who failed their phonics screening test, are struggling with reading or are new to our school or country.

Word Reading and reinforcement of skills for all children:

• Colour coded banded books to read at home which match Lesley Clarke Letters and Sounds phonic phases, evidenced in home reading records and changed regularly.
• Regular 1:1 reading with pupils in EYFS and Key Stage One (daily, 2x, 3x or weekly readers dependent on children’s need) and for those who require additional support at Key Stage 2.
• Whole class phonics lessons delivered daily, focusing on the correct phase of Lesley Clarke’s Letters and Sounds. (EYFS and KS1)
• Timetabled reading lessons (Usually the phonics lesson at EYFS and KS1)
• Additional ‘Ready to Read’ input at Key Stage 2 which consist of short, targeted fluency (T1 &2), inference (T3 &4) and either fluency or inference (T5 &6) depending on the need of the class.
• Key Stage 2 are screened using the Lexia programme and children who are in receipt of the pupil premium grant or identified as benefitting from further support get timetabled sessions.
• Our children revisit phonemes and digraphs regularly through our spelling scheme.
• Regular assessments and clearly targeted interventions for identified children. Interventions are led by ‘Booster teachers’– Mrs Harris (KS1) and Mrs Sladden (KS2) and followed up by trained TAs, in liaison with the reading lead – Mrs Brooker.
• Assessment of word reading and phonic phases (phase 2,3,4) (Reception), Phases 2-5 (Y1),

• Word reading and fluency (KS2).

We use the Lesley Clarke Letters and Sounds Programme: (see scheme of work)

Phase 1 is not covered by our validated scheme and it is expected that children have already explored and come to understand sounds such as instrumental sounds, voice sounds and sounds in different environments. In exceptional cases, (EYFS staff look out for those who may need this support at the point of the ‘Baseline Assessment), this is offered to any who need it.

Phase 2 is taught in EYFS. The purpose of this phase is to teach phonemes (the sounds, letters make) and graphemes (the letter shapes). Children will move on from oral blending and segmentation to blending and segmenting with letters. By the end of the phase children should be able to read some simple words and to spell them either using magnetic letters or by writing the letters on paper or on whiteboards.

Phase 3 is taught in EYFS and involves teaching children further graphemes (written representatives of phonemes) and digraphs (groups of letters and the sound they make) e.g. ai, igh, ear and or.

Phase 4 is taught during Foundation Stage and in Year 1. Children will be able to read and spell words by segmenting and blending. They will know up to 42 phonemes as graphemes by now. The purpose of this phase is to consolidate children’s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words.

Phase 5 is taught through Year 1. The purpose of this phase is for children to broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes for use in reading and spelling. They will learn new

graphemes and alternative pronunciations. When spelling words they will learn to choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes and begin to build word-specific knowledge of the spellings of words.

Phase 6 is taught in Y2 and by now the children should be able to read hundreds of words. Children should either be reading words automatically or segmenting and blending. During this phase, children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.

Spelling scheme: Beyond this our children revisit phonemes and digraphs regularly through our spelling scheme.

Assessment:

Assessment of phonics is ongoing. Teachers and TAs are constantly assessing children’s confidence and ability to recognise letters and sounds. Teachers assess children using phase record sheets. These are shared with the SENCo, reading lead and Key Stage leads. Children in years 1 and 2 may also be checked with previous phonics screens. The data is tracked and analysed and feedback is given to teachers, TAs and the head teacher.  It informs who needs intervention and which intervention groups are running between assessments.

The impact of our phonics policy and practice is:

• an increase in word reading skills and in fluency.
• an increase in reading assessment data for all year groups and sub- groups.
• Strong Phonic Screen Data for our year 1 and 2 children showing they are being well prepared for their reading journey.