English Intent Reading & Phonics Early reading and Phonics At Thrussington, we place the highest importance on providing all children with a structured approach to learning to read from the moment they start at our school. In EYFS and Class 1, we have crafted the phonics programme ‘Letters and Sounds’ into a progressive programme of learning, matching closely to the reading scheme, to enable maximum progress from the start of their time at Thrussington. We use the order of sounds taught in ‘Letters and Sounds’ because we believe the progression supports the children’s reading and spelling effectively. We also use a multisensory method of retaining sounds using rhymes and pictures. Tricky words (words that cannot be sounded out and blended) are taught from early on in phonics learning and children build up their own tricky word packet at their own pace. Our phonics planning is carefully crafted to build in the progression required to create confident readers by the end of KS1. Please see our Phonics scheme progression document for a more detailed rationale and description of how we teach phonics at Thrussington. Reading at School We pride ourselves on our strong reading culture at our school. Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum. Our English lessons are centred around a range of high quality, diverse children books. We link spoken language, reading and writing in order that children can become more confident in all areas of the curriculum. We believe reading aloud to children is vitally important and each class is read to regularly with class books being chosen carefully to challenge and inspire, creating a love of reading. In EYFS the children start with wordless books where they can verbally retell the stories to an adult and each other. This develops their story language and vocabulary. As they begin to recognise sounds they will be introduced to banded books where they can read at their own level, choosing books that interest them to encourage the love of reading from an early age. Children have daily opportunities to read. At times, they read individually, in pairs, in small groups or as a whole class. The reading curriculum focuses on word reading (decoding words) and understanding of texts (comprehension). We teach these skills alongside each other. Opportunities are planned into our lessons for children to discuss what they are reading, share opinions and explore different responses to texts. We have a fantastic, well stocked library where pupils can select their own books. Each classroom also has a reading area and its own selection of books for children to read. Writing At Thrussington CE Primary School we aim for our children to become independent and creative writers. We encourage them to write over a range of genres, for specific audiences and purposes. Throughout their writing, we place great value on the importance of accurate grammar, punctuation and spelling as well as the development of correct letter formation and neatly presented handwriting. Through our English curriculum, we aim to nurture in the children a love of literature and language, and the confidence to continue write throughout their lives. Within our school, writing is taught daily in English lessons as well as being consolidated throughout the wider curriculum (such as history, geography, and science). Through the planned units of work, we give our children a wide range of opportunities in which to develop their writing skills to show progress throughout the year. Children’s progress is monitored using informal assessment i.e., observations, marking of work and questioning children to identify what they have understood. The writing outcomes that children produce at the end of each unit is used as an assessment tool for teachers to track which skills have been applied correctly and areas for development. We moderate our judgements with a group of local schools to ensure our teacher assessments are accurate. If you would like any further information regarding the curriculum, please contact your Class Teacher or our Head Teacher, Mrs Roddy.
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Reading at Home The regularity of reading at home has a significant impact on the progress and confidence a child can develop in their reading. We ask for pupils to read each night and our Reading Record is used to record and share their progress. |