Reading & Phonics

At Richard Wakefield we believe 'through reading, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know.'

Click here to access our Reading Intent, Implementation and Impact statement. ​

What does Reading look like at Richard Wakefield?

Phonics

At Richard Wakefield we predominantly use the Pearson Bug Club Phonics scheme. This helps them to link new phonemes to a rhyme or phrase that can be easily remembered. Pupils in Early Years and KS1 receive daily phonic sessions that focus on learning new sounds to read and then also write. Children are taught phonics in a systematic way that allows pupils to build on their understanding of letters and groups of letters to decode words and then also segment to spell words. 

We use the following Letters and Sounds phases to help guide our teaching. 

Phase 1 (Nursery & Reception) – Children are taught about environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds, oral blending and segmenting of words. 

Phase 2 (Reception) – This phase introduces children to single letters and the sounds that they make. They use this to blend to read simple words and also segment to write simple words. Some tricky words are also taught during this phase. 

Phase 3 (Reception) – During this phase, children are taught the remaining single letter sounds but are also introduced to digraphs where more than one letter is used to create one phoneme. (Sound) 

Phase 4 (Reception) – Pupils continue to build on their grapheme to phoneme correspondence but are also exposed to longer words with adjacent consonants. 

Phase 5 (Year 1, start of Year 2) - This phase tackles more complex sounds that have alternative graphemes for phonemes. They will also learn alternative pronunciations for graphemes.

Phase 6 (Year 2) – This phase predominantly concentrates on phonics for spelling. Pupils explore what happens to root words when prefixes and suffixes are added. We use the Spelling Zone online Programme from Oxford Owl to support our work in this phase. 

Throughout the phases pupils are exposed to the correct terminology linked with phonics and spelling. For more information click here.

Reading

We understand the importance of reading at Richard Wakefield and we want our pupils to gain an enjoyment of books and a passion for reading. We promote reading for pleasure by accessing reading activities in many areas across the curriculum. We ensure that reading is highly valued and addressed in a variety of the following ways; 

• Shared reading as a class and in pairs (20 – 30 minutes 4 times a week)

• Individual 1:1 reading sessions (a minimum of once a week, more if required)

• Shared texts in English lessons as well as other subjects

• Class books are shared regularly throughout the week

• Frequent visits to our school library

• Interactive, engaging reading areas in each classroom to promote independent reading

• Reading skills displayed in classrooms appropriate to year group

• High expectations of reading at home (either to an adult and/or independently) 

• Lunchtime Reading library which allows pupils to read during their lunch break over the summer months

• Regular ‘Buddy Reading’ sessions with other classes where pupils get the opportunity to share books with a child from a different Key stage. 

• Please find our reading progression map here, highlighting the skills taught in each year group.

We rapidly identify pupils who are not making the expected progress in reading and plan interventions to help them close the gap. 

We use Pearsons Bug Club for our reading scheme, which allows pupils to access a wide range of genres but also enables them to access reading materials online from home.

We also regularly celebrate reading in school by presenting certificates to pupils who read frequently and we often enjoy reading enrichment activities such as World Book Day, visits from authors and The Reading Café. 

To ensure all children have access to a variety of books at home, we have opened our 'little libraries' which are based at the entrances of school. We invite children to borrow and swap the books in the little library, encouraging their love of reading.

We recently held a reading workshop for parents in KS1 and KS2 about our reading offer at RW. Here is the PPT we used. If you couldn't make it, feel free to have a look.

Reading Workshop PPT

World Book Day 2022!

Here are some pictures from World Book Day 2022 where we explored the wonders of words; diving deep into the vocabulary of our favourite books. 

Help your Child with ReadingReading at Home EYFS

Bug Club reading bands