Reading and Phonics at the Kennet Federation

Intent:

At the Kennet Federation, we aim to provide children with a vocabulary-rich environment, high quality texts and inspiring reading opportunities. When planning our phonics and reading curriculum we consider how our SEND children will access learning through scaffolding, consideration of resources, groupings and targeted intervention. Where appropriate we use a multisensory approach to support children with learning to read.

Our curriculum has been designed to ensure that all children:

• Become enthusiastic, confident and motivated readers
• Read accurately, fluently and with understanding
• Gain a life-long love of reading
• Are able to understand more about the world in which they live, through the knowledge they gain from texts

Implementation:

As soon as the children start in EYFS, we begin the teaching of phonics and start to develop children’s love of books by modelling reading, sharing stories and encouraging children to explore a range of books as part of their daily routine. We follow the Read Write Inc programme, which is a systematic and consistent approach to phonics. All children in EYFS, Key Stage One and, where necessary, Key Stage Two have daily phonics sessions in small ability groups where they participate in phonic activities that are matched to their current needs. Sessions are delivered using RWI consistent delivery practice. Timely intervention is planned for those children who are working below expected levels as soon as their needs are identified. Any child who is not working at the expected level will receive support such as daily 1:1 tutoring, extra reading with an adult and specific small group phonics intervention. We use a multisensory approach with children who require it. This includes using magnetic letters, hear myself sound telephones, adding gestures to help learn new vocabulary, explaining where the sounds are being formed in the mouth, using Fred fingers to spell and the rhymes and pictures for each new phoneme or grapheme learnt.

All staff refresh their RWI phonics training yearly and any new member of staff is trained in a timely manner.

Early reading is crucial to all children and we place a huge amount of importance on this including supporting children with SEND to develop this skill.  We liaise closely with the SEND team to support all children. This includes small groups and interventions which ensure children with identified SEND  make progress with early reading. Where appropriate learning is repeated to ensure retention and concrete resources such as magnetic letters are used.

Our reading curriculum is planned using the National Curriculum to ensure there is a clear skills and knowledge progression. Skills and knowledge are built on year-by-year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children.

In whole class guided reading sessions, children develop their reading skills for comprehension these are known as the VIPERS. (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval and Sequencing/Summarising). Children also continue to develop their reading fluency skills, building upon their phonics knowledge.

Our reading curriculum uses a text-based approach that enables us to create opportunities for reading, discussion and writing within English lessons. The reading spine includes a range of books covering the 5 plagues of reading, which are complex beyond a lexical level and demand more from the reader than other types of book. Texts are also chosen to promote cultural capital; supporting children to develop the necessary knowledge, behaviours, skills and cultural awareness to be successful in society today and in the future. Children are exposed to opportunities to read across the wider curriculum. 

Reading for pleasure is actively encouraged across the school. All classes are regularly exposed to a class reader to excite and engage the children, and to expose them to new and varied vocabulary. This text is chosen by the staff with guidance from the reading leader. The children have a choice of challenging and enriching texts available in classrooms, which are promoted through year group recommended reads lists.

Reading at home is strongly encouraged and celebrated. Children working on the Read Write Inc. programme take home a ‘book bag book’ matched directly to their current phonics level and are also encouraged to choose an additional book to share with their family at home. The includes our SEND children who have a booked matched to their phonics knowledge and their choice of the same high quality books that their peers can access to read for pleasure. Following this, children work through our colour book band reading scheme, which are levelled books that match the child’s current reading ability. PM Benchmarking is used to assess which book band colour a child should be reading. We expect family members at home to read these books with their child at least five times per week and make comments in their child’s reading record. Once children have completed the colour book band scheme, they become free readers. Children can independently complete their reading at home record book and the expectation is that they do this at least five times per week.

Intended impact:

• Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent and confident readers by the end of Key Stage 1. The children will then be ready to apply their knowledge and experience to a range of texts throughout the Key Stage 2 curriculum whilst also continuing to develop their fluency and comprehension skills.
• Children will enjoy reading across a range of genres
• Children of all abilities will be able to succeed in all reading lessons
• The % of children working at ARE within each year group will be at least in line with national averages
• The % of children working at Greater Depth within each year group will be at least in line with national averages
• There will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (e.g. disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged)