Our Approach to Teaching Reading

At St. Peter's early reading is taught through systematic synthetic phonics. We follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme, where the children are taught letter sounds in a specific sequence in order to develop a progressive ability to decode words for blending and reading. Phonics teaching begins in Reception and the children progress through the programme, becoming fluent readers. The children complete the Phonics Screening Check in Year 1 and those children who do not meet the required standard complete another Phonics Screening Check at the end of Year 2. Phonics support also continues through our phonics programme in intervention sessions in Key Stage 2.

As well as teaching phonics, we also focus on a lifelong love of reading. Again, this begins in Reception where we provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:

• sharing high-quality stories and poems
• learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
• activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
• attention to high-quality language.

Reading is also taught through planned Reading sessions. Within these sessions we develop reading comprehension and stamina through echo-reading. Through class discussions and rehearsing written answers, children develop their inference skills through the use of “in the moment strategies”.

Throughout our school, reading for pleasure is encouraged through the use of our extensive library which all children have the option to use and borrow books from on a weekly basis. Children are also exposed to a range of texts in our classroom reading areas.