What is phonics?
Very few of us can remember how we were taught to read at primary school and so phonics (and the associated language within its teaching) may seem a little alien! After the Rose Report (an independent report into the teaching of early reading) in 2006, the National Curriculum was amended to ensure all children were taught to read using a systematic synthetic phonics approach.
This means that from the earliest stages of their school life, children are taught the sounds of letters, how they blend into words and how they are combined to make up words.
Introduction:
Vision
Kader Academy aims to develop little people who feel safe and happy. We want them to develop a strong sense of pride, not only in themselves, but of their local area and its heritage. We value the importance of strong relationships with our families and our sense of community is at the heart of all we do. We know that our diversity is our strength and we will strive to ensure that the children’s compassion and kindness makes the world a better place. We will inspire curiosity through engaging experiences that promote a profound love of learning. We want them to know that their learning knows no bounds and with self-belief and determination, they can achieve the impossible.
Our English vision is to ensure that all children within our care, regardless of their starting point or their home language, develop a love of the English language, with a proficient command over its use. We want our children to see themselves as both competent readers, writers and speakers who aspire to accomplish amazing things.
Intent
We firmly believe that reading is the key to academic and future success and therefore one of our highest priorities is teaching our pupils to read as quickly as possible and as well as possible. Our intention is to deliver high-quality phonics instruction that equips all pupils with the essential skills to become confident readers and spellers. We recognise that phonics is the foundation of literacy and, therefore, central to our curriculum. Our intent is to systematically teach phonics to ensure that pupils develop strong decoding and encoding skills that will support their reading and writing across all subjects. Our phonics provision is structured around the systematic teaching of grapheme-phoneme correspondence, blending, and segmenting skills. We aim for all pupils, including those with special educational needs or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language, to make excellent progress in their phonics knowledge. Our intent is to create a positive and engaging learning environment where pupils develop a love for reading and writing through mastery of phonics.
Implementation
Before children begin to learn sounds, their little ears need to be developmentally ready to hear them. Early reading begins here! At Kader, talk and language- exposure is vital and is a prominent component of our pupils’ education, all the way through school. From the moment they enter nursery, they are immersed in a language-rich environment which, from the outset, aims high. They will listen to a wealth of stories, sing nursery rhymes and songs and interact with the adults and pupils around them in a stimulating, engaging and ambitious classroom. Listening games and activities feature heavily in our Nursery curriculum and help prepare the children for more formal reading teaching.
When pupils are ready, highly-trained and skilled staff will deliver the Read Write Inc programme to pupils in the earliest stages of their reading journeys. Daily sessions will focus on reading a new sound, identifying the new sound within words and segmenting words in order to spell. Embedded within each session will be opportunities to overlearn previously taught sounds to ensure maximum retention.
Through rigorous and dynamic teaching, closely tailored to need, pupils will read books matching closely to their phonic knowledge development, and will develop fluency, prosody and comprehension within a small group setting. The book is read three times within school and then sent home for additional practise, to ensure maximum confidence and success.
Plentiful assessment opportunities ensure that teaching is responsive: pupils move at pace through the programme and those who fall behind receive swift intervention in the form of 1:1 tuition. Access to the Ruth Miskin portal also enables us to direct pupil learning via Seesaw where we upload specially-created content to support pupil learning at home.
Impact
Through rigorous teaching, thorough assessment and appropriate and timely intervention, pupils will, by the end of Spring term in Year 2, have a secure knowledge of the 75 most common sounds within the English language. This will enable them to fluently decode age-related texts at approximately 80-90+ words per minute, with prosody demonstrating their understanding of the texts they read. Key and consistent routines across all RWI classrooms ensure calming familiarity and the ‘scaffolding to success’ approach at the core of the Read Write Inc approach ensures pupils make excellent progress and thrive within their sessions. Securing these basic reading skills is the key to unlocking the rest of the curriculum and future success for our pupils.
Year group overview:
T:\Teacher\Mrs Burton\2023-2024\TLR\Phonics Progression.docx
Useful links:
How to say the sounds
https://cdn.oxfordowl.co.uk/2016/05/05/20/22/32/561/20097_content/index.html?id=ae
How can I support my child with phonics?
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/how-can-i-support-my-child-with-phonics
A Read Write Inc guide for parents
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide
Sharing stories at home
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/top-tips-from-parents-on-sharing-stories-at-home
Free e-book library (3-11 year olds)