Spring Vale Primary School
Together Everyone Achieving More
Reading & Phonics
Phonics
We teach phonics through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics scheme. This is taught daily in Reception and Year 1 and revisited in Year Two before leading into Little Wandle Spelling. Any children in Reception and Year 1 who begin to fall behind in phonics immediately begin ‘Keep Up’ intervention and children from Year 2 onwards are given ‘ Rapid Catch Up’ intervention if needed. Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised also draws on the latest research into how children learn best; how to ensure learning stays in children’s long term memory and how best to enable children to apply their learning to become highly competent readers.
Click here for videos of how we teach your child phonics and for useful worksheets to support at home.
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Reading
At Spring Vale Primary, we firmly believe that reading should be fun and not a chore. Children have lots of opportunities to read in school throughout the day. There are books, magazines, children’s newspapers, comics and online reading texts available in class, the library and on the playground during break times. All children will have exposure to a variety of texts as a part of their school day in a range of ways, including reading for pleasure, library sessions - in our own library or our local one, class activities and ERIC time (Everyone Reads In Class). In Reception and Year One, children will experience group Guided Reading sessions with an adult, learning how to read fluently, with expression and understanding, using phonically decodable books. After reading these in class, the texts will be available as online readers for the children to access. Children in Year Two onwards, have Guided Reading sessions and Shared Reading sessions to help develop higher level reading skills. We encourage pupils to read at home every day and ask parents to sign their reading record to say that they have heard their child read. We teach phonics using Little Wandle Phonics Scheme. This is taught in small groups daily in Foundation Stage and Key Stage One. Literacy lessons are text-based and all classes have focus texts which they will study throughout the year. These range from traditional tales up to ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ in Year 6. Have a look at the class pages to see what these are for each year group!
Children in Foundation and Year One will bring home a Shared Reader. These books are a similar level to their decodable guided reading books, but the focus is to share them at home, with the adult reading the trickier words, while spending time together discussing and understanding the text. Children in Year two onwards will bring home a Home Reader to read at home. These texts are to help promote a love of reading and will be a variety of genres. Your child will also be given a Collins eReader account which will enable them to access reading books online.
Reading Leader - Mrs K West
Below are some ideas of how to support your child’s reading at home…
Retell the story!
Use Collins eBooks.
Talk about the pictures.
Use reading to inspire drawings or new stories.
Play I Spy games. Can you find words beginning with ….? Can you find a picture of a …? How many ….can you see?
Enjoy reading together. Give characters funny voices and engage with the pictures.
Ask questions about the story as you read it e.g. What is the story about? Why do you think they made that choice? Was it a good choice? Why did that happen? What do you think will happen next? What was your favourite part of the story? Why?
