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Fieldhead Primary Academy

Phonics & Reading

At Fieldhead Primary Academy, we believe that reading is an essential life skill, and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers.

At the heart of our approach is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought-provoking texts.

Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps and to target the highest possible number of children attaining the expected standard or higher.

The Teaching and Learning of Phonics

 

Phonics

At Fieldhead, children are taught phonics through the Department of Education approved scheme Bug Club Phonics.

This allows our phonics teaching and learning to be progressive from Nursery up to Year 2. Children in Nursery work on Phase One phonics in Bug Club activities which concentrates on developing their speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2. As children move into Reception they continue to build on their listening skills and are introduced to Phase 2 which marks the start of systematic phonics work through the Bug Club Phonics scheme. They have discrete, daily phonics sessions where they revise previous learning, are taught new graphemes/phonemes, practise together and apply what they have learnt. Through Bug Club Phonics, the children are taught the 44 phonemes that make up all the sounds required for reading and spelling. Children work through the different phases and as they grow in confidence and experience, they are introduced to alternative ways of representing the same sound. The children are tracked regularly and receive targeted intervention in order to keep up. Reading books are used that directly match the children's skills and are changed regularly as they progress through the phonic phases.

Learning the letter sounds

Children are taught the 42 main letter sounds. This includes alphabet sounds as well as digraphs such as sh, th, ai and ue.

https://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/asset-library/interactive/primary/bugclub/alphabet/index.html 

Learning letter formation

Using different multi-sensory methods, children learn how to form and write the letters.

Blending

Children are taught how to blend the sounds together to read and write new words.

Identifying the sounds in words (Segmenting)

Listening for the sounds in words gives children the best start for improving spelling.

Tricky words

Tricky words have irregular spellings and children learn these separation

Details on how to access Bug club can be found below

Bug Club Welcome Letter

Parental Access to Bug Club

Year 1 Phonics Screening Test

Towards the end of the summer term, children in Year 1 sit a statuary phonics screening test. During this test, the children’s phonic knowledge and skills are tested.

Guided Reading at Fieldhead Primary Academy

Guided reading is an essential element in the teaching of reading. Guided reading is when we teach children a wide range of reading skills based around high quality texts.

In EYFS, Key Stage 1 and Year 3, children read books in their guided reading sessions that are accurately matched to their reading ability. They have three dedicated reading sessions per week with an adult ensuring they can build and develop their reading fluency. With this confidence embedded the children then take their book home to read along with an electronic copy with comprehension tasks.

In Years 4,5 & 6 there is a carefully structured session with a clear learning objective which involves pupils learning, using and applying reading skills to develop independent reading strategies. Key elements involved in the teaching of reading include: predicting, clarifying new words, generating and answering questions on what has been read and summarising key points. Teaching is carefully tailored to meet the needs of each child with appropriate support and challenge built in to each session.

Guided reading also allows us to make explicit links with English units. Children can identify the features – both organisational, language and grammatical – of the text type. They can also explore the writer’s craft to develop understanding of the effects authors create, their impact and how they have been created within the key texts and this then helps children with their writing in English lessons.

At Fieldhead we use a single text for our whole class reading, in Keys Stages 1 and 2 and this is linked with a learning challenge topic each half term. This means the same key text is used in both reading and writing lessons to get the most from the texts and the topics. Please see what each class is reading this year below.

Reading lists - Reception - Year 3

Quality Texts - Year 4 - Year 6