Phonics & Reading

At Brize Norton Primary, we believe that it is essential that all children become confident, successful, fluent readers. We endeavour to foster a love of reading throughout the school starting from our earliest readers through building confidence and engagement. From Reception we develop competence in word reading; promote and develop language comprehension; and ensure that throughout their time at Brize Norton Primary children experience a range of high-quality texts leading to a strong reading culture. We believe in the importance of teaching children Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) as a firm foundation for reading. Being able to read most words ‘at a glance’, supports children in being free to focus on the meaning of what has been read.

PHONICS

We use Rocket Phonics as our SSP (systematic Synthetic Phonics) programme and this progresses from our Reception class until the end of Year 1. In Year 2 we use the Rocket Phonics Next Steps to ensure all children are secure in their phonic knowledge. We teach phonics in year groups, rather than classes, with booster groups for those children who need extra support. This means that all children are exposed to GPCs (Grapheme-Phoneme Corresponence), the relationship between the unit of sound (grapheme) and its symbols (phoneme),  at the same time;  children who need extra interventions are quickly identified.

Phonics is taught by teachers, Higher Level Teaching Partners and Teaching Partners; all staff have received training on how to teach phonics. It is taught daily each morning in Reception for 20 mins at the beginning of the year and increases to 30 mins with reading and writing groups as an extra some days. It is also taught daily in year 1 and year 2 for 30 minutes.

Our SSP starts at the beginning of Reception and children learn the first few GPCs within their first weeks of school. Children are taught as a whole class and within Reception and we expect all children to have a secure knowledge of Sets 1 and 2 with most children secure in more complex blending such as CCVC (Consonant, Consonant, Vowel, Conosonant) or CVCC (Consonant, Consonant, Vowel, Consonant) words. Children will then be ready to start learning and applying alternative GPCs and develop their confidence in using them independently throughout the curriculum. Children progress through the different sets of GPCs looking at 2 a week to ensure that the children develop a secure knowledge of both blending and segmenting. During Rocket Phonics Next Steps, the children revise previously taught GPCs alongside learning other spelling patterns.

Each phonics lesson follows a Review, Teach, Practise and Apply sequence. This ensures that children are familiar with the routine each day and also means that the lessons are fast paced and engaging for the children.  All children are expected to engage and participate fully with each section of the lesson. Activities are planned so that all children can participate and are challenged where necessary.

READING

Reading is crucial to children’s development and potential for success in life.  Here at Brize, we strive to foster a productive reading culture, where children develop a love of reading as well as SHINE from it.. 

In addition to the teaching of Phonics, from Years 1 through to Year 6, we also teach a daily reading lesson of 30 minutes.  These daily lessons are based on a 2 week cycle where the children explore and are exposed to different aspects of reading:

1.  Book Talk – a whole class comprehension and a targeted group approach, ensuring all individuals are accountable.
2.  Demonstration Reading – the art of modelling the internal thinking of a reader. This is to demonstrate how a reader thinks during the process of ‘reading for meaning’.
3.  Demonstration Comprehension – clear, out loud thinking by the teacher whilst modelling answers to questions and showcasing ‘thesaurus thinking’ to ensure the most precise words are used.
4.  Independent Comprehension - where children are able to independently apply the skills which they have learnt through the demonstration comprehension sessions.  
Through these different sessions, there is a focus on enhancing and enriching vocabulary allowing children to develop their own 'thesaurus' of words which can be transferable across the wider curriculum.  Teachers carefully plan their lessons to allow for this using a range of high quality texts and passages allowing children to experience a wide and enriching variety of genres.