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Reading & Phonics Page Header

Reading & Phonics

Intent

Our Objectives


Reading opens up a world of possibilities and opportunities – it is the gateway to the curriculum and to the fulfilment of our children’s dreams and aspirations. We believe that through reading, our children will have the world with all of its joys, mysteries and challenges opened up to them. Through reading, our children can visit worlds real and imagined and experience what is to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while as well as provide a mirror to their own cultures and customs.

We want our children to not only read for functionality but to be life-long readers for pleasure. In order for this to be a reality, we want our children to be secure and confident readers so that reading does not become an activity that is dreaded, but one that is longed for.

Our Aims

Our aims, in line with the National Curriculum for English, are that all pupils:

Phonics

  • That all children achieve mastery depth in oral blending and segmenting so that they are able to immediately apply phonic knowledge in reading and writing.
  • That all phonics lessons include a wide range of opportunities to use and apply oral blending and segmenting, particularly in reading and writing.
  • That all phonics lessons include a wide range of opportunities for children to develop their communication skills and to extend their vocabulary.
  • A consistent approach to the structure of phonics and spelling teaching which is followed by all classes daily.

Reading

  • Read easily, fluently and with good understanding.
  • Develop the habit of reading widely and often, both for pleasure and for information.
  • Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.
  • Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.

Phonics

At Summerville Primary School, as part of our vision, we believe that all children should have the chance to become happy, confident and fluent readers. The teaching of phonics, for younger children in particular, is extremely important in providing children with skills which enable them to access reading and writing and to tackle unfamiliar words. It is therefore imperative that we provide effective phonics teaching from the earliest opportunity, which meets the needs of our children at Summerville.

This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Summerville Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Reading Scheme

At Summerville Primary School, we ensure children's reading books are matched to their secure phonic knowledge. We use Big Cat Letters and Sounds for Little Wandle revised in Early Years and Year 1.

Once children become fluent readers towards the end of Year 1 they have access to a range of colour banded reading books mainly from the PM benchmark scheme. Our Reading and Phonics Policies are on this page.

In KS2, reading is taught using the CUSP curriculum. There are high-quality set texts for each year group, some of which link to other curriculum areas. The texts have been chosen in order to provide a breadth of experiences, authors, texts and themes addressed across the primary years.

Lessons are sequenced into blocks that are typically two weeks long. On days one and five, the core text is explored and on days two, three and four supplementary texts are studied that complement the core text. The focus of week one of the block is understanding the detail of the text whereas in the second week, the focus is thinking more deeply about the text.

Each lesson includes the learning of vocabulary, a fluency activity and questions for the children to explore.

In KS2, reading is taught using the CUSP curriculum. There are high-quality set texts for each year group, some of which link to other curriculum areas. The texts have been chosen in order to provide a breadth of experiences, authors, texts and themes addressed across the primary years.

Lessons are sequenced into blocks that are typically two weeks long. On days one and five, the core text is explored and on days two, three and four supplementary texts are studied that complement the core text. The focus of week one of the block is understanding the detail of the text whereas in the second week, the focus is thinking more deeply about the text.

Each lesson includes the learning of vocabulary, a fluency activity and questions for the children to explore.

Phonics Check Results 2024

Phonics outcomes (Year 1 & Year 2) Summerville Primary School National outcomes
% of Y1 children reaching expected standard in Year 1 check 83% 80%
% of Y2 children reaching expected standard  86% 2024 N/A (89% in 2023)