English

At Twineham, we recognise that reading is an essential tool in ensuring our children are given the best chances in life. It is a foundational skill which underpins a child’s ability to access the wider curriculum in primary school years and beyond. Sustained and persistent access to quality texts allows children to broaden their vocabulary, as well as access the wealth of writing skills and craftsmanship embodied in our rich and diverse literary heritage.

We believe that

Reading the key to unlocking a child's potential.

 

How do we prioritise reading?

· Each of our classrooms has a well-stocked reading corner containing a selection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Books are rotated regularly by staff to match the class topic and pupils’ interests. The area is resourced with comics, magazines and newspapers to extend reading for pleasure and in the EYFS class teddies and puppets are used to encourage reading aloud and re-telling stories.

· We endeavour to use books and high quality texts in our selection of ‘Key Texts’ to enrich the learning and provide access to a range of genres.

· To encourage reading at home. We monitor pupils not reading at home so we can provide extra provision in school.

· Reading is celebrated in our school. Every week, we hold ‘Book Club’ Sessions where children get to share and talk about their independent reading. In Key Stage 2, the children create independent reading journals to track their reading and responses. We appoint Reading Leaders from these classes each week, who have demonstrated regular, critical, independent reading, as evidenced in their reading journal.

· We also hold reading events throughout the year, participating in the ‘Reading is Magic’ week, celebrating World Book Day, holding a sponsored read, as well as inviting exciting authors in to classes.

· Whole class reading sessions are taught with a sharp focus on text analysis. In phonics, we apply our skills to read connected texts and teachers model and teach reading fluently and with prosody.

· Sounds-Write phonics lessons are taught throughout the school. Children in Reception and Year 1 use reading books closely matched to the skills they have been taught. Year 2 pupils continue to learn phonics, picking their books from a colour banded selection. Children in Years 3

and 4 have daily phonics sessions, continuing to build and spelling increasingly complex polysyllabic words. Children in Years 5 and 6 continue to consolidate and develop their knowledge, with the Sounds-Write approach used to teach the reading and spelling of vocabulary across the curriculum. In these sessions we begin to dig into the morphology and etymology of words. Children continue to be given support in selecting books from the class book corners for their individual reading book.

· Teachers make regular assessment during phonics sessions and run adaptable groups for keep up and catch up sessions to target support. In our mixed-aged setting children work comfortably together across year groups.

· Early reading is encouraged by providing pupils with non- worded reading books in the first instance. Once they have developed their phonics and decoding skills they are then moved on to texts that match their phonic ability and are fully decodable.

· Pupils who are learning phonics in EYFS and KS1 take home two books. The first is a decodable Dandelion reading book that they have read in school books are decodable. These books are sent home with an emphasis on reading for fluency, we often ask them to re-read them for continued practice. They will also bring home a choosing a book to be read to for pleasure. Often, these are beyond their current reading comfort zone, and so may need to be shared with an adult.

· Pupils have access to our library and are encouraged to take library books home, in addition to their regular reading books. In EYFS and KS1 pupils may take a library book home as a book to share for pleasure as part of their reading books.

How do we promote a love of reading?

· All staff are expert readers, modelling reading skills, discussing texts read with the pupils and sharing their own love of reading.

· Teachers read class stories to promote a love and enjoyment of stories, immersing them in the world of imagination. We share a class story every day.

· Our learning opportunities incorporate a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, to expose pupils to different texts they may enjoy.

· We map Key Texts across the two years for each class. These texts have been selected for their impact, skills and craft moves they employ. We explicitly teach skills from the texts we use, using them as ‘mentor texts’ to support our writing.

· Book Club sessions allow time for pupils to discuss their reading, helping them to make sense of what they have read.

· Pupils are encouraged to access the library and change books on a regular basis. This is in addition to their reading book from our Dandelion reading scheme.

· We run ‘Book Blasts’ where children meet up across year groups to share stories and enthusiasm.

· We encourage pupils in each class to share their love of reading through reading journals.

· We celebrate reading by holding events such as The Reading is Magic Festival, World Book Day celebrations and inviting authors in.

· We work closely with Steyning Book Shop to keep us up-to-date with new books and author news. We share recommended reads with parents in our newsletters.

How do we make sure pupils make progress?

· Phonics is taught following the Sounds Write progression of sounds to ensure a systematic approach. It is a vocabulary rich programme which starts by building on what children can already do: they can speak!

· Phonics lessons follow the same daily sequence: review, new code, reading and writing in connected text. Children in Reception learn the sounds from the Initial Code, while those in the years above learn from the Extended Code.

· We teach phonics in a whole class setting. The skills are taught cumulatively working from simple to complex. We review learning and allow time to use and apply their knowledge in every session, as we know ‘practise makes permanence.’

· Teachers make constant assessment judgements –observing children in lessons, through questioning, looking at children’s writing, careful analysis of children’s errors and quizzing within lessons

· Planning includes assessment for the graphemes taught. Phonics is assessed half termly to identify gaps in learning to inform future planning and intervention. In the reception year phonics is assessed more regularly in the first term to identify gaps to inform catch up or keep up sessions.

· The school targets the key reading skills through teaching VIPERS.

-Vocabulary: understanding and explaining what we have read including new vocabulary

-Inference: making inferences from the text

– Predicting: Using the knowledge of what we have read to make predictions about forthcoming events or actions in a story

-Explaining: explaining preferences, thoughts and opinions about the text

-Retrieval: using and finding evidence in the text.

-KS1 Sequencing/ KS2 Summarising: identifying the main points of the text by recapping prior reading, scanning and using key words.

-Predicting: Using the knowledge of what we have read to make predictions about forthcoming events or actions in a story

However, we know that reading comprehension does not fit into neat little boxes like this. The central goal of our reading comprehension lessons is to understand the specific text being read and the world in which it relates to through exploration of the text’s use of language. For our children, we ask: how does the text make you feel? What does it make you think? What does it help you know?

· There is a clear progression of reading skills from Reception to Year 6 against which pupils’ progress is measured and gaps are noted and acted on.

· Pupils who are struggling with phonics as identified in assessments are given instant support.

· 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. We have a therapy reading dog who visits school once a week.

· Staff have pupil progress meetings and the English Lead completes pupil conferencing in reading.

· We assist parents with supporting reading through discussions at parents ‘evening, reading information meetings and information on the website and newsletter.

How do we match the pupils’ reading books to their phonic ability?

· Pupils are assessed daily in phonics as well as half termly using the Sounds Write assessments.

· Decodable texts are first used to be read with a trained adult at school, before being sent home to be used as individual readers.

· Books are selected with a two unit ‘lag’ (i.e. one or two units behind the books being used in the reading in connected text part of the phonics sessions.) This lag ensures previous units can be reviewed, enabling spaced practice to help students gain automaticity.

· Teachers track the books against the sounds taught.

· Teachers are responsible for changing and or checking the pupil’s reading books.

· Children are encouraged to re-read texts to develop fluency.

· Children take home reading records. Teachers use these to monitor reading.

· KS2 staff monitor the books chosen by ‘free readers’ to check the books are suitably challenging for them.

· We carefully select the books we use when reading a connected texts during phonics. These are phonetically decodable.

· Whole Class reading books are also selected carefully to challenge the reading of different groups of pupils in school and to ensure a breadth of questions using VIPERS.

How do we teach phonics from the start?

Phonics teaching begins with our youngest pupils from the time they join us in Buttercups. The Initial Code begins as a transparent introduction to the English alphabetic code, where sounds are represented by one spelling. Phonics is promoted and embedded within the curriculum, exposing pupils to sound rich activities which provide the foundations for speaking, reading and writing. We complete baseline assessments in communication and language and literacy to support and identify speech, language and communication needs. In the Summer term pre-reception children are introduced to units 1-6 sounds.

Pupils begin learning letter sounds on entry to Reception. Following the Sounds Write 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 and spell:

· Units 1-6 sounds: a, i, m, s, t, n, o, p, b, c, g, h, d, e, f, v, k, l, r, u, j, w, z

· The will use these sounds to blend and segment CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words i.e. sat

· Unit 7 introduces the x and y sounds and then teaches children that some spellings are written with a double consonant: ff, ll, ss, zz

· Units 8-10 teach no new code knowledge. Here the children build up their experience of reading and writing words with different structures i.e. VCC, CVCC, CCVC, CCVCC, CVCCC and CCCVC words.

· Unit 11 teaches that some spellings are written with two different letters: sh, ch, th, ck, wh, ng and and (representing the sounds /k/ and /w/

 

· Students develop the key skills : segmenting (the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words), blending (the ability to push sounds together to build words) and phoneme manipulation (the ability to insert sounds and to delete sounds out of words).

 

They learn to perform these skills proficiently in simple 3- 4- and 5- sound words with structures CVC, VCC, CVCC, CCVC, CCCVC and CCVCC

They will learn that:

· We spell sounds one at a time from left to right across the page.

· Letters are symbols (spellings) that represent sounds.

· A sound may be spelled by 1, 2 or 3 letters

And they will begin to understand that:

· The same sound can be spelled more than one way.

· Many spellings can represent one sound.

Lessons contain a chance to review previous knowledge, a focus on the current unit and then time to read and write in connected text (reading at least one unit behind, dictation at least two units behind the current unit.) Each unit is studied for 2 weeks.

To support the learning in school, pupils take home phonic books with sounds from the previous one or two units.

· Phonics is discussed with parents in the Transition to School meeting and parents are given resources to support phonics at home.

· When Reception pupils have started school we hold a 6 weeks in meeting with information on how to support phonics and we demonstrate an example lesson.

· Sounds Write runs a free course for parents: https://www.udemy.com/course/help-your-child-to-read-and-write/ which we share on Seesaw. We also share an information leaflet containing key information.

 

 

How do we support pupils to keep up?

· At Twineham, we know our pupils. This is our starting block. We work with flexibility and responsiveness, we scaffold and teach through errors.

· We use a diagnostic tool to help us tailor the lessons appropriately for the pupils – they may, for example, need more support on blending words.

· We watch our children carefully for their code knowledge, their non-word reading (application of phonics in made-up words), how they read in text and how they spell during independent writing. From this, we adapt and according to the pupil needs.

· Sounds Write are whole class lessons which we personalise. Words are matched to the children’s interests. Careful, subtle adaptation within these whole class lessons ensure we work together to get better.

· Sometimes, students don’t make expected progress. In these cases, we deploy:

· Keep Up interventions: small group sessions providing more practice on the current unit, say for example pre-teaching

· Catch Up interventions: working to fill any gaps in students’ skills, code knowledge or conceptual understanding.

· 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 data informs day-to-day planning and teachers adapt and change this according 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?

· Teaching staff, including Teaching Assistants receive reading and phonics training regularly from the reading lead. Teachers access the Sounds Write Portal and are members of the Facebook page. The English Lead coaches staff as well as sharing highlights or episodes from the Sounds Write podcast. Teachers top up their training with online refresher courses. The reading leader meets regularly with the staff to discuss good practise and future CPD.

· The English Lead attends the NEARs network meetings and cascade relevant information back to the school. The reading leader has development days with St Marks School.

· The Head teacher, School Improvement Partner and subject leads monitor reading sessions and conduct pupil conferencing to ensure agreed approaches and consistency are applied across the school.

· The English lead monitors reading and offers guidance to staff with follow up actions.