Reading

English is at the heart of our work at SELEfirst School. English unites the skills of reading and writing; it also involves speaking and listening which are essential ‘basic skills’ and an entitlement of all children.

We aim to lay the foundations for effective learning by equipping children with the relevant key skills.

Staff at SELEfirst school have a responsibility to:

Move children from learning to read, with greater emphasis on reading for learning.

Give every child the confidence and pride in their ability to read and write and the belief that they can make progress.

Motivate children to become readers for life by showing them what books can offer including fun, excitement, pleasure, pathos, interest, information and opportunities that will broaden and often magically go beyond their horizons.

Teach children to read with understanding any piece of text they encounter using all the cues available to them.

Teach children to read with confidence, fluency and to a high standard.

Teach about the range of genres in fiction and poetry and understand and provide opportunities for children to be familiar with some of the ways in which narratives are structured.

Phonics and Reading

The teaching of phonics and reading begins in our Early Years and continues throughout school. Our phonic teaching follows the Read Write Inc. approach.

Read Write Inc. is a comprehensive literacy programme for children learning to read, write and spell. Read Write Inc Phonics weaves word reading, comprehension, writing and spelling together seamlessly. We use it as a framework for the teaching of phonics from Nursery to Y2. At KS2 we used it to supplement target children e.g. those who did not pass phonic assessment at Y2 and those who would benefit from further consolidation of phonic knowledge.

Read Write Inc. Phonics works because we:

Make learning to read more focused and fun; we put as much joy into teaching the sound ‘r’ as we do into reading a story by Roald Dahl
Use picture mnemonics to teach all children to read and write 30 sounds in 2 months
Give children storybooks matched to the sounds they know so they develop accuracy, speed and confidence
Uses unique ‘3 reads’ approach to ensure that children love stories and can read it proudly with comprehension, fluency and expression at home
Provide the tools for children to become confident writers: by the end of Y1; children can write at length using exciting vocabulary and good spelling

These are the statutory programmes of study and attainment targets for English at key stages 1 to 4. They are issued by law; you must follow them unless there’s a good reason not to.

All schools maintained by the local authority in England must teach these programmes of study from September 2016.

These are the statutory programmes of study and attainment targets for English at key stages 1 to 4. They are issued by law; you must follow them unless there’s a good reason not to. All schools maintained by the local authority in England must teach these programmes of study from September 2016.