Reading and Phonics Approach

Reading Intent

“Reading is the key that unlocks a world of knowledge, adventure and endless possibilities – we read to learn and know more, to understand, to escape reality and to to feel part of something bigger. It prepares us for a future we are yet to discover ourselves.” Mrs Taylor-Duffy, Literacy Leader

At Meadowbank, we aspire for all our children to become Life-Long readers. They are exposed to high quality texts from Foundation Stage to Year 6, which supports and underpins their learning across the wider curriculum, enabling them to access a wider and deeper knowledge through engaging and enriching texts. We want children to be articulate in what they are reading and curious to know and remember more; so provide an environment rich in discussion and meaningful learning opportunities. It is important that children are immersed in a literature rich environment and so we invest in high quality texts that brings teaching and learning to life. A love of reading runs parallel with the progression our word recognition and language comprehension – choice, ambition and ownership are therefore key practises we endeavour to embed within classroom practise. Reading is a fundamental skill that has a profound impact on our lives, developing our understanding of literacy, and changing how we relate to and communicate with other people, and how we understand the world around us.

 

Aims

• To develop life-long readers with a love of literature.
• To develop fluency and confidence. 
• To embed and develop a progression of skills in inference through text and images.
• To enable children to make their own choices in texts.
• To provide children with rich texts to develop their awareness of vocabulary and the world around them.
• To expose children to rich literature to support their learning across half termly big questions.

 

Phonics

Phonics at Meadowbank is taught following the Fisher Family Trust “Success for All Phonics” programme. This is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme that has been validated by the Department for Education.

 

Phonics is an integral part of the curriculum across the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 (continuing into Key Stage 2 as necessary). Through daily, systematic and consistent high-quality phonics teaching, a synthetic approach to teaching ‘pure sounds’ is used as children learn to blend and segment words for reading and spelling. Lessons are planned so that children build on their skills sequentially and systematically, with reading materials that have been designed to support rapid and sustained progress and are matched to the scope and sequence of the programme. A comprehensive set of decodable shared readers are  provided by the programme and are read by children in school, as well as being accessible for families to share online at home.

 

Children who may require additional support are identified using a range of assessment information and are supported through small group or one to one programmes, such as Tutoring with The Lightning Squad, a reading tutoring programme where children work in small groups with a tutor to improve their reading skills. The tutoring is a blended approach with face-to-face tutoring supported by an online tutoring platform. The tutoring activities are designed and structured to improve reading skills, fluency, comprehension, spelling and phonics.

 

The programme supports our intentions to teach children to read and write independently so that they are able to access the curriculum and flourish as learners throughout their time at our school, whilst developing a lifelong love of reading.

 

For support with phonics at home and for more information about the FFT Success for All Phonics Scheme, please use the following link where access to the Parent Portal can also be found: https://parents.fft.org.uk/

 

Learning Journey

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We have a clear teaching sequence, where all teachers plan opportunities over the week for children to:

• Read independently and aloud to adults to develop fluency.
• Listen to adults reading aloud.
• Discuss the text with adults to support articulation.
• Question peers and deepen thinking.
• Apply understanding to explicit skill based learning.
• Become familiar with unseen texts and responding to these.

 

Learning Environment and Immersion

Reading and writing are promoted and celebrated across our school, where children are excited to share their learning with others; through displays, vocabulary and literature; and through shared curriculum planning and our cross curricular approach, thus emphasising the importance of reading for writing, alongside reading for pleasure.

Across school, we believe that every adult is a teacher of reading and early reading, to ensure our children are provided with the necessary support, challenge and stimulus to progress as independent and life-long readers. The teaching team use technical and consistent vocabulary with the children to ensure children progress securely, from early phonics to embedding the use of reading vocabulary and skills in VIPERS (vocabulary, inference, retrieval, prediction, explanation and summarise) across Key stage 2. Children are provided with opportunities for additional support, where needed, to help them meet the age related expectations, based upon priorities and targets set through individual class teachers – the teaching team work closely together within directed and focus groups within lessons, as well as well-planned and structured personalised programmes to support individual children.

Additionally, children are encouraged to read daily at home and we use a colour coded banded system throughout the school to support children in choosing accessible texts, which then support the progress to read and make book choices freely. In support of this, parents are invited to attend both reading and phonics workshops throughout the year, held by leaders in school, aimed to promote the importance of reading and build awareness and confidence in support of school practises at home.

We are proud of the reading culture we have fostered over the years and the enrichment we offer to our children here at Meadowbank. Our curriculum runs on six key concepts:

Reading to Learn	Choice	Community	Book Talk	Rich Literature	Story Sharing
Texts are planned in line with our half-termly big questions to immerse the children in their learning – including fiction, non-fiction, picture books and poetry. Leaders of all subjects plan for texts to support and enrich learning.	Children have agency in what they want to read alongside class texts. Books clubs are a part of lunchtime provision. Classes visit the library regularly, where they will share a book together or use their library card to choose their own book.	Children are role models for reading - reading buddies and reading ambassadors play a key leadership role within school. Classes visit local libraries over the year, to celebrate reading in the community. World book day is celebrated as a WHOLE school, sharing a high quality and meaningful text from FS through to KS2. Leaders provide parental workshops, inviting parents into to see reading in action. In Foundation stage, we host mystery readers, encourage parents to share stories and are a part of the Book trust Book start, gifting books to our early readers.	Teachers model and promote discussion of literature with children through development of key reading skills. Teachers talk to children about their reading interests, sparking discussions and recommendations.	Teachers are ambitious for all children and expose them to a wealth of class reads over the children celebrating male and female authors, authors from other cultures and historical fiction. Every classroom offers a stimulating reading area, where children can select age appropriate texts to read themselves.	Time is dedicated to sharing stories in class, away from learning daily. These are from our class aspiration reads and stories brought in from home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our approach to an immersive curriculum allows fluent application to be made across the curricular, allowing children to make purposeful links. The skills that children develop, are linked to, and applied in, every subject - the skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening enable them to communicate and express themselves in all areas of their work at school. Literacy skills are also highlighted and specifically targeted in reading and writing across the curriculum to enable the children to practise and embed their skills and write with a clear purpose.

 

Assessment for Learning

Reading assessment are captured through a collection of formative and summative approaches to inform the teaching team where the children are within the age related expectations.

In reading these include: the use of the reading skills age related expectations; Success for All Phonics baseline and diagnostic assessments; termly comprehension assessments; 1:1 reading; reading and phonics sessions within class, and pupil voice. The sequence of learning is evident in each child’s literacy skills book and teacher’s rigorous planning.

Our personalised planning ensures that teachers plan for children to demonstrate their understanding of different text genres, grammatical techniques and reading skills in a range of settings, and ensures that this enables them to show both their fluency, knowledge, application understanding and comprehension skills to the best of their ability. This may include videos, voice recordings, cross-curricular writing, verbal discussions, feedback from personalised programs, the use of our learning toolkits and assessment data. Feedback is given verbally to the children wherever possible to develop further discussion and to address the children’s misconceptions and make accelerated progress towards meeting and exceeding the age related expectations.

 

Monitoring and review

The Literacy Leader is responsible for the rigorous monitoring and evaluating of reading and writing through school self-evaluation processes and systems. Ongoing analysis of outcomes enables the Literacy Leader to identify groups of children across school and support the teaching team in enabling all children to make accelerated progress. Feedback to the teaching team then informs next steps, where support is personalised, and effective continuing professional empowerment is planned, to address areas for development. Our children are also involved in the monitoring and evaluation process and are empowered to talk about their learning and experiences through a variety of children’s agency strategies.