Reading

Reading and Phonics at Warmsworth Primary School

Reading is a vital, lifelong skill that opens doors to a world beyond our own experiences and at Warmsworth Primary School we aim to ensure that every child is able to develop a love of reading so that they are able to become 21^st century lifelong learners.

We believe that all of our children should have strong decoding skills and a range of strategies that allow them to become fluent, confident readers who are keen to learn new vocabulary and are equipped with a vital skill to unlock the world ahead of them.

Through experience of a wide range of quality texts our children will be able comprehend and discuss texts as well as being able to use their skills as an access tool for finding out information about the wider curriculum. Our choices of texts will ensure that children have access to books that they can identify with as well as books that broaden their experiences. Children will be able to clearly articulate their understanding of the themes that they study.

We aim to encourage a home-school partnership to enhance the skills being taught in school so that children gain a love of reading at home as well as school.

We aim to ensure that children foster a love of reading and are confident to use resources within their local area such as libraries in order to extend their reading journey into adulthood.

Warmsworth Primary School Reading Framework

Foundation Stage 1 Reading Scheme of Learning

Foundation Stage 2 Reading Scheme of Learning

Year 1 Reading Scheme of Learning

Year 2 Reading Scheme of Learning

Year 3 Reading Scheme of Learning

Year 4 Reading Scheme of Learning

Year 5 Reading Scheme of Learning

Year 6 Reading Scheme of Learning

Our children’s reading journey starts in Early Years Foundation Stage 1 with the beginning of systematic, synthetic phonics, through transitional reading and ensuring that children are secondary ready by the time they leave us in Year 6.

We use progression documents that ensure that progression in made from the Early Years Foundation Stage through to Year 6. Our reading curriculum mapping ensures that children’s learning matches the requirements of the National Curriculum, and beyond.

Throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage and as the children progress through our school, we use the scheme ‘Little Wandle’ for the delivery of systematic phonics.

In Foundation Stage One children begin to listen to sounds in the environment and progress into recognising individual phonemes.

The daily delivery of phonics throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One is based on recapping the previous sound and using multi-sensory approaches to enable children to learn new sounds by first reading them and then learning to apply this to their writing.

Our whole school curriculum is predominantly text-led and as a result of this children will experience a wide range of texts such as picture books, non-fiction texts, nursery rhymes and traditional tales during their time at our school.

Our individual reading scheme in the Early Years Foundation Stage is built around the phonics that they have learned in class and children will read at home with books containing the phonics that they have been working on. Across the Early Years Foundation Stage, key rings of phonemes etc. are shared with parents so that children can practise sounds and words at home and we involve parents as much as possible. We also encourage parental involvement in our phonics teaching during parent workshops so that parents can experience how we teach phonics in class and share videos on Google Classroom to ensure the correct pronunciation.

Systematic, synthetic phonics learning continues through into Key Stage 1 where ‘Little Wandle’ continues to be used in Year 1 and where children have not secured their understanding of phonics this will continue into Year 2 and beyond, as needed. 

During Key Stage One, the focus on fluency is vital and children are encouraged to read for understanding. It is at Key Stage 1 that Reciprocal Reading is introduced and includes the four key elements of comprehension: prediction, questioning, clarifying and summarising. Our home reading scheme continues to be matched to children’s phonics understanding until they have a secure grasp of this learning. As children progress through the reading scheme throughout their time at school, more high frequency and tricky words, different genre and levels of difficulty are introduced.  Parents are invited in to take part in Reciprocal Reading sessions as part of our parent workshops.

Throughout Key Stage Two, fluency and Reciprocal Reading become the two main components of reading learning and these are often based on a class novel where it is the driver for the theme, although non-fiction skills and poetry also form part of our rich reading opportunities. Parents continue to be invited in to take part in Reciprocal Reading sessions as part of our parent workshops. As well as reading for pleasure, we also ensure that children have ample opportunity to apply their reading skills to research topics either at the library or using computers.

Intervention starts early and through Little Wandle ‘keep up’ resources and planning form part of the scheme so that from the Early Years Foundation Stage, children access small-group, additional interventions to ensure that rapid progress is made. Where small group work does not enable children to secure the phonic knowledge needed to become fluent readers, 1:1 support will be provided. As children start to gain an understanding of texts and comprehension skills are developing, children may need further intervention to address any misconceptions and would access group intervention.

Reading lessons are differentiated to support all children to achieve; some may require learning to be broken down further, teacher may scaffold children’s thinking and responses for example. Children who are higher attainers in reading are challenged to apply their learning across different contexts thus deepening and expanding their understanding and skills.

High quality reading provision is achieved by ensuring that all staff receive regular, effective training. All staff have accessed systematic, synthetic phonics, Reciprocal Reading and fluency training and teaching staff have received further professional learning to ensure that they have a full understanding of how the progression documents and schemes of work are to be used to plan lessons.

We have a sticker and bookmark scheme throughout school to encourage children to read frequently at home; this is proving to be a good motivator for our pupils. Children are encouraged to apply their phonic knowledge when reading their books as well as other cues which may aid fluency.

We celebrate reading in our ‘Reader of the Week’ assembly, where badges are awarded to those children who their teachers have identified as having made good progress. In order to promote a love of reading our children access library and author visits.

Reading is assessed through guided reading sessions in Early Years Foundation Stage, Year 1 and Year 2 in addition to the end of block phonics assessments that are integrated into the Little Wandle phonics scheme. As children progress through from Year 2 into Key Stage 2, formative assessments will be made to inform interventions through reciprocal reading lessons and reading 1:1 with children. Termly formal assessments support teacher’s judgements alongside other assessments such as Salford tests where required.

Reading is a priority within our curriculum and it is evident across the curriculum.

Our children are observed to enjoy selecting books from our recently developed lower school library.

Our younger children are reading scheme books that are appropriately matched to their phonics knowledge and our older children are now accessing a broader range of texts by wider range of authors.

Our children clearly have a love for reading and speak very positively about reading – and love being awarded the ‘Reader of the Week’.

Our children make great progress in the learning of systematic synthetic phonics, exceeding the national average for the pass rate at the end of year 1 phonics test with 93% of our children achieving the expected standard.

Our children are confident readers, with the majority entering Key Stage Two being able to read with clarity and having a good level of comprehension.

On leaving our school at the end of Key Stage 2, our children are prepared for their next stage of their educational journey having made above average progress, attaining consistently above the national average with 84% of children achieving age-related expectations at the end of Key Stage Two in 2019 with 30% of children attaining Greater Depth.  90% of children attained age related expectation in both 2018 and 2017.

Please click the links below for useful information for parents:

Little Wandle Website for Parents

Phonics Screening Check 2023 - Information for Parents

Warmsworth Primary School English Policy