The teaching of Reading & Phonics according to the National Curriculum

“All pupils must be encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum. Reading widely and often increases pupils’ vocabulary because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. Reading also feeds pupils’ imagination and opens up a treasure-house of wonder and joy for curious young minds.”

The teaching of Reading & Phonics at Noak Bridge

Everyone at Noak Bridge recognises reading as one of the most important skills that children can develop. Reading allows children to learn knowledge for themselves, and in the 21st Century an interest and ability in reading is sometimes all that is needed for us to unlock a wealth of information. It is an essential part of our everyday lives, but it is also a thoroughly enjoyable activity.

At Noak Bridge, pupils are encouraged to read on a regular basis. Children are taught reading skills from the Early Years Foundation Stage. Our aim is that the children will quickly become skilled and confident readers and show enjoyment in developing independent and successful reading skills.

We teach word reading through using a systematic synthetic phonics approach. The scheme we base our phonics teaching on is Read, Write Inc which has been adapted to accommodate additional sounds exposure. This initially teaches individual letter sounds (phonemes) and then builds up to blending these sounds together to read the whole word, for example, c-a-t ‘cat’. The children are taught to sound out each letter sound and blend the phonemes together to form the word. The sounds are taught in a specific order to enable children to be able to read words quickly and effectively. As pupils progress, they begin to learn phonemes that are made up of two letters, e.g. sh. Eventually, the pupils are then taught to recognise alternative spellings for sounds, e.g. recognising the vowel sound /a/ as ay, ai, or a-e in words.

Alongside the skills to decode words, children are taught tricky/red words (words that don’t lend themselves to decoding rules). 

Read, Write, Inc. expectation of progress

Books that go home

EYFS and KS1 children will take home a phonics book that is chosen by their class teacher to be reflective of the sounds that they have covered. They can then also take home a challenge book. You should expect this challenge book to contain sounds they have not covered yet in class. It is a book that they are expected to share with you and get your support in reading.

Books will be changed on a weekly basis. When this occurs will be determined by each individual class teacher. If your child does not return their current book on their allocated book changing day, they will not be able to take a new book home. It is important that their books are in their book bags every day. This ensures they can select a new book when appropriate but also read to a member of staff when asked.

Upon completing the phonics scheme, the children will progress onto the banding system that the school have implemented to cater for fluent readers.

Fluent Readers

By the beginning of key stage 2, pupils should be fluent enough in their reading to allow them to progress onto bands that we have formed within our school library. These bands contain age-appropriate books and will continue to allow your child to develop their fluency and understanding while reading.

Below is a table that allows you to identify the band at which your child should be aiming to be within. The system guides you to the reading level your children should be on by the beginning and end of LKS2 and UKS2. For example, it is expected that year 3 pupils would start the year on dots and by the end of year 4 they should be on stripes. Pupils will only progress onto the next banding level when their teacher is happy with their fluency and understanding of the text. It is expected that the children be able to answer questions based on what they are reading.