Reading at Delabole Primary School:

                                                                                                                                      Mason Cooley

Reading lies at the heart of learning at Delabole Primary School. We believe that becoming a confident and fluent reader gives every child access to the wider curriculum, opens up new worlds and ideas, and brings a lifetime of enjoyment.

From their earliest days with us, children are surrounded by stories, ambitious vocabulary and carefully chosen, high-quality texts. We teach children the knowledge and skills they need to become successful readers while nurturing curiosity, imagination and a genuine enthusiasm for books.

Aims:

We aim to nurture a love of books and encourage and enable children to become readers for life. In order to facilitate this, we aim to provide children with the effective reading strategies which are vital in enabling them to become fluent, responsive readers. We aim to encourage each child to become a confident, independent reader who is self-motivated to read both for pleasure and to fulfil a given purpose.

Read Write Inc. Phonics:

At Delabole Primary School, Read Write Inc. Phonics is our systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP), providing children with a clear and consistent approach to the early stages of learning to read.

Children in EYFS and Key Stage 1 are taught phonics every day. Through Read Write Inc., children learn to recognise sounds, blend them confidently to read words and develop the accuracy and automaticity needed for fluent reading.

The books children read are carefully matched to the sounds they have been taught. This allows them to practise their developing knowledge successfully, experience success and build confidence.

Children are assessed regularly and grouped carefully so that phonics teaching is closely matched to what they need to learn next. Where a child needs further support, we provide additional, targeted teaching promptly, helping them to keep up rather than catch up.

As children become secure in their phonics knowledge and increasingly fluent readers, the emphasis begins to shift from learning to read to reading to learn, while vocabulary, comprehension and fluency continue to be explicitly developed.

We know that parents and carers are an important part of children's reading development. Throughout the year, we provide opportunities for families to understand how we teach phonics and reading and how they can support their child effectively at home.

In Year 1, children complete the statutory Phonics Screening Check during the summer term.