West Blatchington Primary and Nursery School

Learning to read is the most important thing your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.

We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.

How will my child be taught to read?

We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Ask them to show you what these are.

The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.

The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.

The teachers read to the children, too, so the children get to know all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. They learn many more words this way and it also helps their writing.

The children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are taught in small group teaching sessions, and each lesson goes through a Review/Revisit – Teach – Practise – Apply format so the children are able to consolidate their learning in a pacey, engaging style. Children who need further consolidation of phonic phases will be taught in addition in smaller groups. Children are closely monitored to assess their learning and they are also assessed half termly to check their progress, this information is recorded on phonic tracker sheets with teaching adjusted accordingly.

Building on their learning from Key Stage 1, children will continue with Read Write Inc in Year 3 and if needed in Year 4. As they progress throughout Key Stage 2, additional spelling strategies will be taught to the children using the ‘Support for Spelling’ document. A different strategy will be taught each week to help them develop their understanding of more complex spelling patterns.

Children are matched to a colour band in accordance with their reading ability and take a fully decodable book home, based on the learning in class. Their book band level is assessed regularly to ensure children are reading within the correct colour band.

Throughout all key stages children are engaged in group guided reading sessions, during these sessions a group of children, of similar reading ability, have multiple copies of the same text and read aloud or individually within a group. A reading focus is discussed with the children and the teacher stops and discusses points from the text and will clarify any misunderstandings or tricky words. To extend the children's reading and promote independence there is a follow-up discussion or piece of written work to establish comprehension of what has been read. This type of reading teaches the children strategies they can then use when reading independently and continues to happen throughout Key Stage 1 and 2. However, with more fluent readers the teacher focuses on developing their inference and deduction skills as well as their knowledge about more complex language and grammatical features of the text. Each guided reading group is listened to on a weekly basis and records are kept, which continually assess the children’s fluency, strategies and comprehension of the texts being read.

To learn more about our core expectations for literacy across Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, please click on the documents below: