Reading and Phonics
At St. Chad's we love to read!
We begin teaching reading with a focus on phonics and we use Ruth Miskin’s Read Write Inc (RWI) programme.
The foundations are laid in Nursery where the focus is, first of all, on developing careful and accurate listening and having fun with sounds, words and sentences. The children learn good reading behaviour by imitating our teachers’ excellent models. Our children are encouraged to ‘read’ words and captions around our text rich learning environment and to compose their own. Our young children soon learn to share our love for reading.
The phonics programme continues in Reception and into Key Stage 1.
Parents occasionally join their children for phonic sessions so that they are better able to help their children at home. The children are assessed every half term in order to effectively track progress and are grouped accordingly. Our phonics screening check results are strong each year and continue to stay above the national average.
Once children are off the programme in Year 2, they continue with Ruth Miskin’s Literacy and Language in order to prepare them for Literacy lessons in Key Stage 2.
During the Early Years and Key Stage 1, children not only take an RWI phonics book home for practise, they are also given reading books weekly to continue their reading development at home with their families.
In Key Stage 2, children are given the opportunity to change their own books within their reading band and once they get to a certain reading age, they become a ‘free reader’ meaning they can choose any book from their class library.
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