The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of reading. Our curriculum is designed to ensure children to become fluent communicators, avid readers and confident writers. Our children are empowered by a high-quality English curriculum that teaches our children to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them.
Teaching children to read and write independently, as quickly as possible, is one of the core purposes of a primary school. These key skills not only unlock the rest of the curriculum but also have a huge impact on children’s self-confidence and future life chances.
The National Curriculum programmes of study for reading are based on the simple view of reading. This model shows that reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. In all our classrooms, from Nursery to Year 6, we prioritise reading to our children because we know that listening to and talking about stories develops children’s vocabulary. The reading framework
To ensure that our children are able to read and write successfully, we use the programme Read Write Inc to teach phonics. Phonics teaches children that the letters on the page represent the sounds in spoken words. Children’s knowledge of the English alphabetic code – how letters or groups of letters represent the sounds of the language – supports their reading and spelling.
In Read Write Inc. Phonics children:
Watch this short introduction to RWI phonics for more information: How Read Write Inc. Phonics works - a parent/carer’s guide
Reading in Nursery
Reading is one of the most important lifelong skills that children will begin to develop while they are in our nursery. We actively teach the skills needed for children to become good readers using a range of activities, strategies and resources. First and foremost, we aim to instil a love of reading in our children. We do this by sharing carefully selected stories with the children every day. As well as reading to the children, we encourage them to share books with their friends. Our Nursery classroom has an inviting book corner where children can choose their own books to look at or share.
Before children begin matching letters to sounds in phonics sessions, we teach our children about sounds around them so that they can spot the differences and differentiate between many sounds. In these sessions we also teach children about the rhythm in words, about rhyme and alliteration. Children will learn and join in with many songs, jingles and rhymes while they are with us. They will develop their own repertoire of Nursery rhymes and Maths rhymes to help them learn skills to help them read. When the children are ready, we start the next stage of our phonics programme by teaching the children the letters of the alphabet and their corresponding sound. We use the Read Write Inc. sound cards and mnemonics to support children as they match letters to sounds.
Reading in Reception
In Reception, learning to read becomes an essential part of the children’s daily routine. Within a group, children are taught the initial sounds of the alphabet. Sounds are associated with familiar words, for example a for apple, to help children to grasp the letter-sound correspondences quickly. Children are also taught to read common exception words e.g. the or he.
Following the RWI programme, we start by teaching children to read the first thirty sounds (Set 1 Sounds) and to blend these sounds to read words (i.e. to know that the sounds c/a/t can blend together to read the word cat). We introduce the sounds of letters first rather than their alphabet names as the sounds support them as they learn how to decode texts. Once our children have mastered the skill of sounding out and blending, they start reading stories and texts that have words made up of the sounds they know. This means that they can embed and apply their phonic knowledge and start to build their reading fluency. At the same time, we teach them to write the sounds and use this knowledge to spell, leading to writing short sentences.
Once our children have mastered the Set 1 sounds and have started to build-up a bank of words they can read on sight, they progress to learning the more complex sounds (Set 2 and 3). As their confidence and fluency grows, the children read texts with increasingly more complex sounds and graphemes (different ways of spelling the sounds, e.g. /igh/, /ie/ or /ay/, /ai/). They learn that a sound can be written using 2 or 3 or even 4 letters. We call this a grapheme (e.g. igh represent the /i/ sound in the word night).
During their phonic lessons, children read lively phonics books which are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of sounds so that they experience success in reading. Alongside their phonics lessons, we continue to immerse children in high-quality texts which are read aloud to the children every day. We use story-maps as a way of encouraging children to learn these narratives off by heart so that they can retell them with confidence. Children are encouraged to select their own books to read which are on display in the book corner. All around the Reception classroom, we have text asking children questions, making statements and giving information. These purposeful texts help children to read for meaning and understand that writing has a purpose.
Watch this pronunciation guide to learn how to say all the sounds: How to help your child to learn the Read Write Inc. Phonics sounds
Reading in Year 1
As the children progress into Key Stage 1, they continue to develop and consolidate their growing knowledge of sounds or phonemes and their associated graphemes. Within a group, children are taught sounds in a lively and engaging lesson. They continue to read phonics books which contain the sounds they know so that they can read with increasing fluency. Children’s comprehension or understanding of the story is developed through multiple readings, making predictions, book discussions, retelling events and answering questions.
Supporting readers
Children who are reading below the level expected for their age are identified through assessment and rigorously supported to make rapid progress. Children in Year 2 who are new to English attend daily phonics lessons until they are able to decode texts accurately and read fluently. Regular phonics assessments track their progress through the different sets of sounds in RWI.
Whole-class reading in Year 2
At Ladysmith, we teach reading whole-class once children have successfully completed the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme and can read fluently and confidently. We use Read Write Inc. Comprehension as a carefully structured transition from phonics into a book-based, whole-class reading approach.
Building on children’s secure decoding skills and familiar routines, this programme enables pupils to move seamlessly from learning to read, to reading to learn. Through consistent lesson structures, children develop their reading stamina, fluency and confidence while accessing a wide range of high-quality fiction and non-fiction texts.
Lessons are designed to deepen understanding through partner discussion, teacher modelling and purposeful questioning. Children are taught to explore new vocabulary, explain their ideas and answer ‘why’ questions, supporting them to think more deeply about what they read. This transition ensures that all pupils are well prepared for a rich, book-based whole-class reading curriculum, where they can engage with increasingly complex and ambitious texts as confident and thoughtful readers
From Spring Term, we use Little Wandle Fluency to further develop reading fluency, confidence and comprehension through a carefully structured approach. Little Wandle Fluency uses a rich range of vibrant, diverse and engaging chapter books written by contemporary authors and illustrators, enabling children to experience high-quality texts while continuing to practise and secure their reading skills. These high-quality texts span fiction, non-fiction and poetry and are chosen to broaden children’s reading experiences and deepen their understanding.
Our text-based approach builds on early reading foundations, continuing to develop pupils’ word reading and comprehension skills. Children are taught to decode unfamiliar words, expand their sight vocabulary and engage critically with texts. We explicitly teach key comprehension skills, including summarising, questioning and making inferences, ensuring that all pupils grow into confident, fluent and thoughtful readers.
Having engaging and challenging texts is one of the ways we encourage our pupils to develop a love of literature and to read for enjoyment. Evidence from research shows that ensuring our children develop all the skills of language is essential to unlocking access to the rest of the curriculum. Therefore, opportunities to read and write are embedded across the curriculum. This approach also expands our children’s knowledge of the world in which we live. When children encounter words in their reading that they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech, we can systematically teach our children new vocabulary. Therefore, rich and lively vocabulary instruction is an essential component of all our reading lessons using strategies contained in Bringing Words to Life by Beck et al. We know that by explicitly teaching vocabulary, we will encourage students to become interested and enthusiastic about words, keen to explore relationships among words and use them in a way that they come to ‘own’ the words.