Phonics and Decodable Readers
Phonics is taught through the DFE approved programme devised by Twinkl from Reception to the end of Year 2. The scheme helps children to build up words using their constituent sounds, and also helps them with recognising spelling patterns. We use reading Twinkl reading scheme books and the children read decodable books which contain sounds they have met previously in their phonics lessons.
Children take home a daily Reading record and parents are strongly encouraged to hear them read and talk about their books daily. The records are used as a means of communication between home and school so that parents and teachers can work together in order to help the children develop fluency.
Beyond Early Reading
Those children who have developed enough confidence and independence in their reading may begin to access books levelled according to a standardiser 'Hodder' Score. Each child will carry out a specific reading assessment in order to determine their individualised score; we then use the score to match the children with an appropriate text. We find that by following this system, our children become confident, enthusiastic successful readers. Children at Whitley Chapel C of E First School have a passion for reading which is evident in many subjects across the curriculum.
Guided Reading
Guided Reading activities also take place daily and these are based around developing the children's skills in inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval, summarising, fluency and vocabulary identification. The children are organised into ability groups for their guided reading sessions across Year 1, 2, 3 and 4.