Reading & Phonics
Our focus is to create opportunities to improve children’s attitude towards reading and embed these by using reading skills across other areas of the curriculum. We promote a teacher love of reading culture and develop enjoyment for reading within the English curriculum by using a Novel Study approach as well as promoting a wide range of reading initiatives both inside and outside the curriculum.
All children receive appropriate reading provision that allows them to make progress towards age related expectations (ARE). We plan reading activities using the programmes of study from the DfE National Curriculum at KS1 and KS2 which includes word reading and comprehension (both listening and reading). We regularly assess and identify reading barriers of the emerging needs of children so each individual can access the most suited level of provision. Children who fall behind ARE access the same reading provision as other pupils, but receive additional support either in small groups or 1:1 to ensure accelerated progress.
All our children are provided with age appropriate reading material and we use the ‘big cat’ programme to benchmark our children’s levels. Children have the opportunity to change their books on a regular basis and reading is monitored through the use of a home school reading diary.
Our teaching of comprehension includes teaching literal, inference and evaluations skills with progression being provided through increasing the challenge of texts being used and from the complexity of the questions a teacher asks or the tasks set, and the quality of the answers they’re willing to accept. To support the teaching of comprehension skills we use Cracking Comprehension from Year 2 through to Year 6 delivering good quality texts that provide opportunities for children to meet their objectives.
At Bramble Academy we are committed to the delivery of excellence in the teaching of Phonics. We aim to develop each child so that they are able to read with fluency as well as develop a love of reading that will stay with our children all their lives.
We use the systematic and structured Phonics Programme Floppy’s Phonics. Floppy’s Phonics is in line with the Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) teaching principles described in the ‘English programmes of study: key stages 1 and 2 – National curriculum in England’ which is statutory.
The Floppy’s Phonics programme teaches the letter/s-sound correspondences of the English alphabetic code explicitly and comprehensively for reading and spelling. It includes the characters of Floppy the dog, Biff, Chip and Kipper and their family and friends, which engages children fully for the phonics teaching & learning, vocabulary enrichment and language comprehension.
Initially children's listening skills are developed through the use of music, environmental sounds and rhyme. During their journey through the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 they are taught the 44 phonemes (sounds) that make up all the sounds required for reading and spelling. These phonemes include those made by just one letter 'b as in bed' and those that are made by two 'ai as in rain or three letters 'igh as in high'.
Children are taught the key skills of blending sounds together for reading and segmenting (breaking up) words for spelling.
As the children grow in confidence and experience, they are introduced to alternative ways of representing the same sound, eg 'ee' can be represented as 'ee, as in bee', 'ea as in tea', 'e-e as in theme' and 'e as in we'. They also learn when to apply simple spelling rules and use verbs in the correct tense.
We ensure that our teaching of phonics is rigorous, structured and enjoyable. In Reception to Year 2, children have discrete, daily phonics sessions where they are introduced to new phonemes, explore, practise and revise previous learning and have plenty of opportunities to apply the knowledge they have.
We use a range of multisensory strategies to enthuse and engage the children, including the use of interactive whiteboards, magnetic letters, grapheme tiles, speaking and listening, and practical activities. Children work with pace and are encouraged to apply their knowledge across the whole curriculum.
How we teach reading at Bramble Academy
These four videos show you how to pronounce the sounds. Notice how the children don’t add an ‘uh’ sound at the end, so they say: ‘t’ not ‘tuh’.
Phase 2 sounds taught in Reception in Autumn 1
Phase 2 sounds taught in Reception Autumn2