Phonics and Early Reading at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Primary School

At Saint Patrick’s Primary School, we believe that reading provides pupils with a powerful skill to understand and change the world. It is a pivotal part of the curriculum. We believe that learning to read and reading for pleasure transforms children’s lives. As a school we have worked with the English Hub to ensure that the children are provided with a high quality Phonics and Early Reading Curriculum. 

Intent

The systematic teaching of phonics and early reading is a high priority throughout Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. We are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We acknowledge that children need to be taught the key skills in segmenting and blending to be equipped with the knowledge to be able to read a text. We also value and encourage the pupils to read for enjoyment and recognise that this starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills.  We believe in an engaging curriculum in Reading - equipping pupils with the skills they need to understand a text.

Implementation

•  We plan an effective English curriculum which will meet the needs of all learners; making adjustmenwhere necessary to ensure that children with Special Educational Needs and those who are categorised as Disadvantaged Learners are able to achieve their full potential. 

Through the teaching with letters and sounds the children are taught the essential skills needed for reading. Phonics is taught daily to all children in Foundation Stage, and KS1. Extra support and appropriated reading books are provided to those in Year 2 and beyond who have not passed the phonics screener and interventions are planned for those children who are working below expected levels.

Staff systematically teach learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them. Phonics is delivered in a whole class format with extra support given where appropriate. Teachers regularly assess the pupil’s phonics knowledge using the phonics assessment, reading milestones and Reading Early Learning Goal (in EYFS). These regular assessments inform planning and allow teachers to identify any gaps in learning. Extra support is regularly planned to support pupils where required.

Pupils have regular reading sessions with an adult to ensure the pupils are practising and applying their phonics knowledge. The children have reading books matched to their phonetic knowledge and they are encouraged to read regularly at home. From the end of Reception, teacher-led guided reading sessions take place weekly in small groups. Children read and reread a carefully selected engaging text where they focus on

• accuracy
• automaticity (rapid recall of whole known words)
• prosody (reading with expression)
• understanding
• vocabulary choices
•  word meaning
• retrieving key information

Once children become fluent readers, a range of books are provided to allow children to engage in more lengthy discussions about the content of the book to deepen their understanding and broaden their vocabulary.

Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move into Key Stage Two. We firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.

Phonics Validated Scheme

We use Unlocking Letters and Sounds which was validated by the DfE in December 2021. We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4. In Year 1 through Phase 5a, b and c, they learn any alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes and additional Common Exception Words. By the end of Year 1 children will have mastered using phonics to decode and blend when reading and segment when spelling. In Year 1 all children are screened using the national Phonics Screening Check. In Year 2, phonics continues to be revisited to ensure mastery of the phonetic code and any child who does not meet age related expectations will continue to receive support to close identified gaps. For further details please see the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression (Click Here). To ensure no child is left behind at any point in the progression, children are regularly assessed and supported to keep up through bespoke 1-1 interventions. These include GPC recognition and blending and segmenting interventions. The lowest attaining 20% of pupils are closely monitored to ensure these interventions have an impact.

Reading Scheme

At Saint Patrick's Primary School we promote a 'phonics first' approach and in both our guided reading sessions at school and in the books children take home, texts are very closely matched to a child's current phonics knowledge so that every child can experience real success in their reading. In these crucial early stages of reading we primarily use books from Big Cat Phonics or Ransom Reading Stars Phonics, to ensure complete fidelity to the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression we follow.

Once children progress beyond decodable texts, they move onto our book scheme so that they can continue to progress in their decoding, fluency and comprehension skills to become avid, expert readers.