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Phonics and Early Reading Policy

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Phonics and Early Reading Policy

Approved by: Adele Clark (Headteacher)
Date: February 2023
Last review: February 2023
Next review: February 2024

The context of our school

Intent

Implementation

Impact

“Reading is the one ability, that once set in motion, has the ability to feed itself, grow exponentially and provide a basis from which possibilities are limitless” Michael Morpurgo.

Phonics and Early Reading Policy

This policy is to be read in accordance with the Co-op Academies Trust Early Reading and Phonics Policy and in conjunction with the Co-op Academy Woodlands Writing Policy and Co-op Academy Woodlands Reading Policy which outlines our Trust’s, and our whole school approach and rationale to the teaching of English. The purpose of this policy is to ensure a consistent approach to the systematic synthetic teaching of phonics and early reading through Little Wandle Dfe validated SSP programme.

The context of our school

Co-op Academy Woodlands is a larger than average Primary with a capacity of 420 pupils in Reception to Year 6 and a 52 place Nursery (from age 3). The Academy is in an area of high deprivation. This is amongst the 10% deprived neighbourhoods in the country in terms of income, employment, education, skills and training, health and crime. Our academy serves a complex community; pupils and families face multiple challenges to learning including those relating to deprivation, attendance, behaviour, mobility and parental engagement. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is 64.8% (national 24%). The proportion of pupils whose first language is not English is 63.7% (national 21%) and the academy has 14 out of the 17 possible ethnic groups (ISDR 2021).

A significant proportion of pupils join the academy after Reception. The academy stability measure is 67% compared to 82% nationally. In 2021/22 the academy had 61 new starters and 35 leavers since September (reception to year 6). This represents a mobility figure of 14.9% in 2021/22. The proportion of pupils with an EHCP is lower than national (school 0.5 national 2.1, ISDR 2021.) The number of pupils requiring SEN support is 22.2% (national 12.6%). Levels of attendance and levels of persistent absence is a concern and the academy has rigorous strategies in place to address this.

It is therefore essential that our approach to teaching phonics and reading is accessible to all learners, regardless of background.

Intent

Phonics (reading and spelling)

At Co-op Academy Woodlands, we place reading at the heart of our curriculum and within everything we do. Our aim is that all of our pupils, regardless of their backgrounds, needs or abilities, will be confident readers that make sufficient progress to meet or exceed age-related expectations by the time they finish KS2.

We believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery and follow the LittleWandleLettersandSoundsRevised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Co-op Academy Woodlands, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Comprehension

At Co-op Academy Woodlands, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the LittleWandleLetters and Sounds Revised Programme.

Implementation

Foundations for phonics in Nursery

We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:

sharing high-quality stories and poems learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
attention to high-quality language.

We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revisedexpectations of progress:

Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
Children in Year 1 review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using

Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Daily Keep-up lessons in Reception and Year 1

Any child in Reception and Year 1, who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.

Rapid Catch-up in Year 2 to 6

We timetable daily phonics and/or reading sessions for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Rapid

Catch-up assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach them using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace.

These short, sharp lessons last 15-20 minutes daily and have been designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.

SEND Programme

Little Wandle SEND is a complete programme that mirrors the main LittleWandleLettersand SoundsRevised Phonics programme but with adaptations and support in place that make it possible to meet the needs of all learners.
The Little Wandle SEND programme is for children who require adaptations and to be taught at a slower pace due to cognitive function or other disabilities. If they do not have a specific SEND that requires adjustments or adaptations, then the main programme, Keep-up or Rapid catch-up are most likely to meet their needs.

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:

are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the LittleWandle LettersandSoundsRevised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of

‘Application of phonics to reading’.

are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

decoding
prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
We continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Home reading

The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.

Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children. We share the research behind the importance and impact of sharing quality children’s books with parents through workshops, leaflets and the Everybody read! resources.
We use the LittleWandleLettersandSoundsRevisedparents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

All children in school have access to Collins ebooks where they are able to read the Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised books which are fully decodable books to support the Little Wandle SPP program. Children also have access to the Big Cat KS1 & KS2 books.
All children are encouraged to read at home as part of our whole school Read at Home Challenge. Children are asked to record what they have read in their reading records. Teachers then record this on each child’s Reading Challenge Chart. Prizes are given to children who read 25, 50, 100, 200 and 250 times.

Additional reading support for vulnerable children

All children, in all year groups, are expected to be read with an adult at least once a week. Additionally, the lowest 20% of children in class, read their reading practice book to an adult daily. This is recorded on our school’s Frequency of Readers sheet.

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
Lesson templates, Prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
The Reading Leader and SLT will regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’(OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’(OECD 2010)

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Co-op Academy Woodlands and

our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures. These books can be found on our Year Group Book Spines.

Every classroom has a reading area that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.
In Nursery and Reception, children have access to the reading area every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
Children from Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school.
As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments and keep a list of the books/authors that they have read
At Co-op Academy Woodlands we have a Reading at Home Challenge where they are encouraged to read and record what they have read in their reading record. The children receive prizes for the milestones they reach.
At the beginning of each year, Reception to Year 6 are asked to choose a book front cover to use on their peg in the cloakroom. The children are given a range of diverse books to choose from.
Each class visits the local library once a year.
Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc).
We use the Everybody read! resources to grow our teachers’ knowledge of current books, the most recent research and to grow our own Reading for Pleasure practice.

Impact

Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

Assessment for learning is used:

daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

Summative assessment for Reception and Year 1 is used:

every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
by SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place. The Reading Leader and SLT could where necessary implement changes using this summative data.

Fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They are used:

in Year 1, when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books
with children following the Rapid Catch-up programme in Years 2 to 6, when they are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books
to assess when children are ready to exit their programme. For Year 1 children, this is when they read the final fluency assessment at 60–70+ words per minute. Older children can exit the Rapid Catch-up programme when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute. At these levels, children should have sufficient fluency to tackle any book at age-related expectations. After exiting their programme, children do not need to read any more fully decodable books.

The Rapid Catch-up assessment is used

with any child in Year 2 and above, who requires phonics teaching, to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching

The SEND assessment is used

with any child entering or accessing the SEND programme so their pathway and specific teaching plan can be created.

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for Rapid Catch-up in Years 2 to 6

Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through:

the Rapid Catch-up initial assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan appropriate teaching
the Rapid Catch-up summative assessments to assess progress and inform teaching
the Rapid Catch-up fluency assessments when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books for age 7+.

The fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They also assess when children are ready to exit the Rapid Catch-up programme, which is when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute.

Any children in Year 3 to Year 6, who have not passed the Phonics screening check in year 1 or 2, re-sit the test until they have passed.