Seven Aspects of Reading at Chacewater School
Reading is a Priority
At Chacewater, reading is a priority because we recognise that developing both the skills of reading and a love of reading, ensure a world of opportunity for our children. Reading is essential to access not just the primary school curriculum, but is also preparation for learning at secondary school. As a skill necessary for life-long learning, it provides endless possibilities and opportunities for improvement and as a pleasure it feeds imaginations and takes us to people and places that we can only dream about.
- Reading is a school priority within our school development plan
- We ensure training and monitoring of reading is in place and it is regularly reviewed.
- The systematic, synthetic phonics programme of Read Write Inc is delivered daily to EYFS and KS1 between 9.00 and 9.45am.
- Every week, KS2 children have three 30-minute Accelerated Reader sessions and two 30-minute, whole class reading sessions
How do we promote a love of reading?
- Staff and children are passionate about reading.
- All staff are expert readers, modelling reading skills, discussing texts, reading with children and sharing their love of reading.
- Teachers read class texts daily to promote a love and enjoyment of stories.
- The school library is regularly restocked and children are consulted on the selection of new reading books, supported by our designated Reading Champions.
- We encourage children to share their love of reading by: inviting them to recommend great reads to their peers; provide opportunities for children to take part in National Events, such as: Roald Dahl’s birthday celebrations and World Book Day and by giving opportunities for reading outside on the playground or the other outside areas.
- Parents are encouraged to read daily to their children. Children in EYFS and Key Stage 1 take home a selection of books weekly: a book bag book, read write story book and a book for pleasure.
How do we make sure children make progress?
- Phonics is taught daily following the Read Write Inc (RWI) progression of sounds to ensure a systematic approach.
- Phonic lessons follow the same sequence of teach, practise, revise, review and apply, including daily partner reading. Planning includes assessment for the graphemes taught. Phonics is assessed half termly to identify gaps in learning to inform future planning and intervention.
- Upon completion of the RWI program children move onto the Accelerated Reader Program, to support independent reading.
- The comprehension aspect of reading is taught through whole class guided sessions. The teachers focus their questioning on the 6 reading domains: clarifying, questioning, explaining, retrieval, summarising and predicting. To support the children’s understanding, dual-coding through ‘The Pawsome Gang’ is used.
- Pupils who are struggling with decoding skills (preventing them from accessing reading material) have targeted interventions or are part of a smaller reading group. Targeted intervention follows the RWI scheme and staff implementing this are fully trained.
- Pupils who need further opportunity to practise reading because they do not read at home, are given priority to read to an adult in school. Class teachers ensure volunteers, who come into school to hear readers, are trained to support reading appropriately.
- Staff have pupil progress meetings and the Reading Lead completes pupil conferencing in reading. A focus on the lowest 20% and supportive actions is a key focus.
- We assist parents with supporting reading by providing parents meetings, reading information meetings, information on the website and letters home.
How do we match the pupil’s reading books to their phonic ability?
Through the Read Write Inc programme, children are given books that match the sounds that they have been taught. Children are then able to read with confidence and practice sounds at home.
- Pupils are assessed daily in phonics as well as half termly using the RWI assessments. Assessment then informs which books match to the pupil’s phonic ability.
- Staff in EYFS and KS1 are responsible for changing and checking the pupil’s reading books.
- Pupils who are learning phonics in EYFS and KS1 take home three books: a book bag book, a read write story book and a book for pleasure.
- Once children are assessed as coming off the RWI programme, they move onto Accelerated Reader. The Accelerated Reader programme, ensures that children continue their reading journey in a structured way.
How do we teach phonics from the start?
Our children learn phonics from the day they start at school and their skills are built up in a sequence daily. Our results in KS2 clearly show that children leave at the end of Year 6 with good reading skills and are able to then access the learning when they move onto KS3 at secondary school.
Pupils begin learning letter sounds on entry to Reception. Following the RWI system pupils are immersed in a directed teaching approach which embeds systematic phonics skills as the core skills for reading. Sounds are taught in a specific order, and regular assessment informs future planning and interventions.
First, pupils will learn to read:
- Set 1 Speed Sounds: these are sounds written with one letter: m a s d t i n p g o c k u b f e l h r j v y w z x and sounds written with two letters digraphs: sh th ch qu ng nk ck
- Words containing these sounds, by sound-blending, e.g. m–a–t mat, c–a–t cat, g–o–t got, f–i–sh fish, s–p–o–t spot, b–e–s–t best, s–p–l–a–sh splash.
Second, they will learn to read:
- Set 2 Speed Sounds: ay ee igh ow oo oo ar or air ir ou oy
- Words containing these sounds.
Third, they will learn to read:
- Set 3 Speed Sounds: ea oi a-e i-e o-e u-e aw are ur er ow ai oa ew ire ear ure as well as the sounds ue, au, wh, ph, oe, ie
- Words containing these sounds.
From set 2 pupils will learn 2 or 3 new sounds per week.
How do we support children to keep up and catch up if needed?
Within the National Curriculum, it states ‘if children by the end of Year 1 are still struggling to decode and spell they need to be taught to do this urgently through a rigorous and systematic phonics programme so they catch up quickly. Those children who are assessed as being in the lowest 20% of each year group, receive catch up interventions in the afternoons.
- Summative data is submitted once a term and pupil progress analysis is taken from this. Pupils identified by class teachers and in pupil progress meetings as not making progress have interventions planned for them and teaching staff are aware of who is a priority for intervention/support.
- Formative assessment informs day-to-day planning and teachers adapt and change this according to the pupil needs.
- Pupils who did not achieve their phonics check receive interventions (daily reader/extra phonics support) and/or work in a group which is teacher driven.
- Where progress becomes a concern, parents are invited to a meeting with the teacher and advice is given as to how they can further support their child at home.
How do we train staff to be reading experts?
We have trained RWI experts. These staff attend official training at the beginning of the school year. They are regularly monitored by our school’s Early Reading Lead and also support visits are in place from Kernow English Hub.
Our Early Reading Lead provides regular updates, training and sharing of good practice with everyone involved in the delivery of phonics and supporting early reading. These updates take place at least every half term.
All staff within our school understand the concept of RWI and within KS2 the staff have developed an effective system for whole class shared reading to build on skills that have been learned within KS1.
Reading is at the heart of everything we do!
