Phonics and Reading

Reading for Pleasure

As part of our intention to foster a love of reading in all children at Lord Deramore’s, we have developed our own set of core ‘read aloud’ stories, non fiction texts and poems for each year group. We have selected a range of books set both in the UK and around the world and have included both traditional and modern texts, as suggested by the Reading Framework 2023. This list will be refreshed regularly as new books are published and as new members of staff join our school. Some texts will be used as the focus for reading and writing lessons while others will simply be shared for pleasure in our daily story time.

While these are the core texts children will have read to them, teachers will supplement these with others of theirs and the children’s choice. Every class will be read aloud to daily in a timetabled session.

Scroll through the slideshow, or click here for a .pdf with the information about the 2024-25 texts

Intent

Phonics (reading and spelling)

At Lord Deramore’s we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We use this together with Collins Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised decodable books, to ensure fidelity.

We start teaching phonics in Early Years and follow the Little Wandle progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

At Lord Deramore’s, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Comprehension

At Lord Deramore’s, we value reading as a crucial life skill. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a two Reading Leaders who drives the early reading programme in our school. Our Reading Leaders, monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle programme.

Implementation

Daily phonics lessons in Early Years and Year 1

• We teach phonics daily. In Early Years, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
• Children make a strong start in Early Years: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
• We follow the Little Wandle expectations of progress:
  • Children in Early Years are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
  • Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

• Any child who needs additional practice has keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the keep-up resources – at pace.
• If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

• We teach any children who are not yet fluent readers, to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
  • are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
  • use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle assessments and book matching grids
  • are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
• Each reading practice session has a clear focus. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
  • decoding
  • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
  • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
• In Early Years, these sessions start once children can blend. Children who are not yet blending have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
• In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Home reading

• The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.
  • Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.
  • We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

Additional reading support for vulnerable children

• Children who are receiving additional phonics keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adults 1:1 in school as well as in their reading practice group.

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

• Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
• Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
• Lesson templates, prompt cards and how to videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
• The Reading Leaders and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

• We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Lord Deramore’s and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
• In Early Years and Year 1, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
• Children from Early Years onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will stamp/write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.
• As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments and keep a list of the books/authors that they have read.
• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc). The school library is open to the whole school community after school each Friday.

Impact

Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

• Assessment for learning is used:
  • daily within class to identify children needing keep-up support
  • weekly in the review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.
• Summative assessment is used:
  • every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
  • by SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

Statutory assessment

• Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for catch-up

• Children in Year 2 to 6 who need phonics support are assessed through their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment as well as through the half-termly Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised summative assessments.

For further information and documentation about the teaching of English, including the Reading Curriculum Progression Plan, please see the planning and progression section of our website.