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Exceptional Education at the Heart of the Community

Exceptional Education at the Heart of the Community

Reading and Phonics

Reading at Skinner Street

Reading at home with parents, grandparents, brothers/sisters and increasingly alone, should be seen as an enjoyable activity which fosters a love of books. Reading and the enjoyment of reading is fundamental to our philosophy and the key to academic success.

In Early Years and KS1 each child has a Reading Contact Book to enable parents/carers to work with the academy and communicate the progress that is being made. In KS2 there is an expectation that children will read at home every evening, either from the academy reading scheme or their own choice of reading book, and this will be recorded in their Homework Log Book.

We expect all children by the end of EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) to be able to:

  • Read and understand simple sentences
  • Use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately (see OASS Phonics Policy)
  • Read some common irregular words
  • Demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read
  • Use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds

We expect all children by the end of KS1 to be able to:

  • Retell a story using narrative language and added relevant detail
  • Attempt pronunciation of unfamiliar words drawing on prior knowledge of similar looking words
  • Draw inferences such as inferring characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions
  • Explain and discuss understanding of books, poems and other material, both those read aloud and those read independently
  • Make analogies from a word already known, to apply to an unfamiliar word

We expect all children by the end of KS2 to be able to:

  • Read a range of texts both fiction and non-fiction with confidence, fluency, enjoyment and understanding to enable them to develop preferences and make informed choices
  • Be able to use and transfer the skills that they are learning, in order to read and write competently throughout the range of subjects taught in the academy by using a cross-curricular approach where themes are linked to Humanities, RE, or Science topics, for example. 

Use the links below to view some top tips on reading at home

Recommended Reading

Reading Rocks

Read Write Inc Phonics

We use Read Write Inc. Phonics scheme to teach our children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. They learn to form each letter, spell correctly, and compose their ideas step-by-step.

Children learn the English alphabetic code: first they learn one way to read the 40+ sounds and blend these sounds into words, then learn to read the same sounds with alternative graphemes.

They experience success from the very beginning. Lively phonic books are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and ‘tricky’ words and, as children re-read the stories, their fluency increases.

Along with a thought-provoking introduction, prompts for thinking out loud and discussion, children are helped to read with a storyteller’s voice.

We are very excited to be handing out our RWI packs to all EYFS and Year 1 children to take home!