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Phonics and Home Reading

Children in Phase 1 (Reception and Year 1) follow a synthetic phonics approach, using the ‘Read Write Inc.' programme. It is an approach to teaching phonics in which individual letters or letter sounds are blended to form groups of letters or sounds, and those groups are then blended to form complete words. Children in this age phase also learn a range of mnemonic rhymes to support their phonic knowledge.

Children in Phase 2 (Year 2 and 3) continue this programme if required and children completing the programme will then further develop their understanding of decoding and comprehension through a variety of activities, which promote both retrieval and inference skills.

We use a combination of reading schemes to promote independent reading at school and at home. These include Ginn, Project X, Sunshine, Oxford Reading Tree, Big Cat and Rigby Star. These provide a variety of fiction and non–fiction books and extend reading phonetically.

As your child moves into Year 4 they will start the ‘Accelerated Reading’ programme. This programme is a tool for monitoring and managing independent reading practice while promoting reading for pleasure. It informs teachers how well a child has understood what they have read but also measures their understanding of vocabulary and literacy skills. The AR scheme consists of a wide range of diverse fiction, non-fiction and poetry including both modern and classic children’s literature.

Children in Year 5 and 6 are taught to read using a range of strategies and they continue with the structured phonics programme if required.

Children learn to read at different rates and it is important that they have opportunity to talk about what they have read, evaluate different viewpoints and explain and discuss their understanding of books.Our diverse approach to reading at Calverley CE covers all of the new National Curriculum requirements for language and literacy and allows our children to have positive early experiences of learning to read.

For more information on phonics and how to support your child in learning to read, follow the links below:

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/learn-to-read-phonics/

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents-copy-2/

The links listed offer a range of interactive games to develop phonics and reading skills. These sites have some free resources, in addition to games which can only be played with a subscription.

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

https://www.phonicsbloom.com/

https://www.teachyourmonster.org/

https://phonicshero.com/

https://www.jollylearning.co.uk/resource-bank/

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html

The following resources may be useful when supporting your child with phonics at home: