Reading
The foundation of reading is:
- understanding
- communication
- listening and attention
- engagement and enjoyment
The core foundations are integrated into all curriculum delivery and staff will work with parents/carers through EHCP outcomes on these areas.
Love of reading to develop engagement, understanding of language and communication.
Across Key Stages, pupils have multiple exposures to story time sessions, read to by an adult, in relation to their whole class shared texts. Rhymes, songs and drama may also be used to engage pupils individually or within a group. Many opportunities are created for the children to become familiar with these stories through repetition, encouraging engagement and exposure to vocabulary and the language of stories.
Stories are shared in many ways, such as, sensory stories, story massage, use of ICT to deliver, through drama games and role play etc.
Texts have been carefully planned linked to phases in school to ensure that we foster a love for reading and include a wide range of stories, non-fiction texts, and poems. It includes a range of stories set in the UK and around the world, both traditional and modern, with engaging illustrations from different backgrounds and cultures. Teachers select books that create opportunities for pupils to develop their:
Pupils are also given facilitated opportunities to share books individually, this maybe in class book areas. This may includes books that pupils love to look at many times over.
Phonics in the Primary Phase
All pupils at the Bridge access the accredited Twinkl Phonics programme which provides a Systematic Synthetic Phonics approach. Twinkl Phonics provides an inclusive programme beginning with listening and attention and progressing through to all levels of decoding and encoding which subsequently supports reading fluency and accuracy.
Every class in school has timetabled phonics session from the Twinkl scheme. The length of these sessions is dependent on the needs of the pupils in class, agreed with the Literacy Leads and Head of Phase.
Level 1
All pupils will experience a wealth of listening activities including songs, stories, body percussion and rhymes through the seven aspects:
The 7 aspects of learning in Level 1:
Aspect 1 – Environmental Sounds
Aspect 2 – Instrumental Sounds
Aspect 3 – Body Percussion
Aspect 4 – Rhythms and Rhymes
Aspects 5 – Alliteration
Aspect 6 – Voice Sounds
Aspect 7 – Oral blending and segmenting
This work is to support the development of pupil's listening and communication skills, including their vocabulary. It builds the important skills to be able to hear individual sounds in words to support progress in reading.
Level 2 – Individual pupils working at this level are working at pre-key stage standards 1 and above.
Further levels are used with individual pupils if appropriate (Level 2 to 6). Teachers can discuss with parents/carers the level that their child is working at and the sounds are taught at each level and their pronunciation and blending.
Other resources/ strategies that may be used to support the teaching of phonics:
Emphasis is always on the MAKATON alphabet signs to ensure consistency for pupils (as advised by Primary English Teaching & Learning Specialist, for Telford).
All adults model using ‘pure sounds’ when supporting pupils in their knowledge and understanding of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs)
ICT resources, including iPad Apps, are used when it is complimentary to other methods and appropriate to the pupil.
All phonics resources are adapted to meet the needs of the pupils at the Bridge School to support pupil’s individual learning
Decodable Reading Books:
Pupils access decodable reading books when they have learned a set of phonic sounds and are able to blend them. In the Primary phase pupils access decodable books that have been matched exactly to the order in which the GPCs are introduced in line with Twinkl Phonics Programme Levels 1-6. Books are carefully selected by class teachers so that they are in line with the individual pupil’s current knowledge and understanding of specific GPCs.
The pupils access the following reading schemes to support their progression in the Twinkl Phonics levels:
These schemes have been selected as they are fully decodable and books. Books are only used that that are aligned to the Twinkl Phonics Phase of the pupil.
Other Interventions
The school has an specific approach to reading that is followed. There is published research from the DFE on the key principles to be followed for all children when learning it read and any suggested intervention e.g. from a professional needs to be aligned to be implemented in school.