Early Reading and Phonics
Our Curriculum Intent for Phonics
At Cuddington, we provide a rich reading environment which is underpinned by quality first teaching of phonics; our children learn to listen, speak and discriminate between sounds and our carefully sequenced approach allows children to become confident in segmenting, blending, and decoding words throughout each phonics phase. By doing so, we aim to develop confident, fluent and passionate readers and writers from an early stage.
Phonics and Early Reading
Reading is central to all learning and the ability to read effectively will support children's learning across the curriculum, their ability to be independent, and their future life choices. Exposure to a wide range of stories and texts ensures that children are better able to make sense of the world and this is the driving force behind our approach at Cuddington. Fostering a love of reading begins an early age when the children join us in Reception and continues right through to Year 6. To ensure that reading is at the heart of our curriculum, we immerse the children in reading experiences such as daily story times, sharing stories, and reading aloud poems, rhymes, stories and non-fiction to develop speaking and listening skills as well as improving vocabulary.
Implementation
At Cuddington, we teach Phonics using the Essential Letters and Sounds programme. Phonics is taught daily in Reception and KS1 through carefully sequenced lessons. Previously learnt phonics knowledge is also revisited throughout KS2.
Each lesson begins with a review of the children’s prior knowledge in phonics. This is followed by the teaching of new sounds and an opportunity for the children to practise and then apply their learning. Our phonics lessons are fast paced, clearly modelled, interactive and challenging to ensure effective learning and progress is made. Whole class teaching allows all children to access Quality First Teaching, while catch up sessions and effective, targeted interventions are also provided for those children who may need a little more practice and support.
How do we provide for all learners?
At Cuddington we strive to meet the needs of all our chidren, including those with SEND. Teachers aim to make phonics accessible for pupils of all abilities, pupils are encouraged to work as independently as possible but reasonable adjustments are made for those children with SEND. Planning is modified, additional scaffolding is provided and we complement whole class teaching with small group interventions and individual support where necessary.
Reading books
We use a range of fully decodable books which have been carefully organised to match the sounds that our children learn each week. Our children will take home a decodable reading book so that they are able to apply their new knowledge and phonic skills at an appropriate level. They will also have an additional book, usually from our Collins Big Cat scheme, which may not be decodable but is to share at home in order to develop their vocabulary and interests.
Our children are given daily opportunities to practise their reading fluency, whether it be 1:1 reading with a teacher, teaching assistant or parent reader or through reading aloud during whole class shared reading.
At Cuddington, we always aim to promote reading for pleasure as this in itself plays a major role in reading development. Our teachers are readers and share their love of reading with their children in a range of ways, including daily class reads, recommendations and mystery readers. Each classroom has an inviting reading area, resourced with ‘top picks’, familiar stories and books linked to topics. The children are also given the opportunity to visit our well-stocked library each week, where they can borrow books to take home.
Useful links:
How to pronounce Phase 2 sounds
https://vimeo.com/641445921/9382cf6db0
How to pronounce Phase 3 sounds
https://vimeo.com/642342878/59d233684c
For further enquiries please contact Mrs Hall; hall@cuddington.cheshire.sch.uk