Archbishop Hutton's V.C Primary SchoolEarly Reading and Phonics
At Archbishop Hutton's, we teach reading in the Early Years and Key Stage One through a rigorous daily programme of systematic, synthetic phonics using letters and sounds. The children are taught in small groups organised by their phonic phase.
They are assessed informally throughout the year to ensure they are secure in their phase before moving on.
We use the Red Rose Phonics scheme developed by the Lancashire English Consultant team
What is Phonics?
Basically,
When sounds are blended together to read words
When words are broken down into sounds to segment for spelling.
The children are taught to read words by blending, which means pushing all the sounds together to make a word. The children are taught to spell words by segmenting, which means sounding out words and writing down the sounds they can hear.
By the end of Reception children are expected to be secure in Phase Three and entering Phase Four. By the end of Year One children are expected to have finished or be nearing the end of Phase Five. By the end of Year Two, children should be reading in line with the curriculum age related expectations (which means to be reading with a good level of fluency and comprehension beyond the phonics scheme). After moving from the phonics scheme, children will continue to learn more advanced spelling rules using no nonsense spelling and reading will be taught in line with the national expectations for reading comprehension.
What does reading look like at Archbishop Hutton's?
Children will bring home a reading book each week. This will be compatible with their current phonic knowledge.
In Class 1, reading books need to be in school everyday. Children will be listened to over the week. Books will be changed on a Monday and Thursday. Children are expected to read the book at least three times before the book will be changed. This encourages fluency and good comprehension skills to develop their understanding.
Class 2 is the same as Class 1, except books will be changed on a Tuesday and Thursday. More fluent readers will get additional books not from the phonics scheme and may need some support with these.
The children will also read regularly in a guided reading session.
Please have a look at our Early Reading and Phonics workshop presentation for more information.
