English | Middlestown Primary Academy

Reading

Reading is at the heart of everything we do and we encourage every child to be a proficient reader and develop a passion for books. Children at our school love reading because it is woven into everything we do – it is happening all the time. Reading and comprehension is specifically taught in English lessons but children are constantly practising reading skills in all areas of the curriculum.

Our priority is helping children become fluent readers and develop their comprehension skills. We value reading as a key life skill and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. To ensure academic success in reading, we promote:

A love of reading and partake in reading for pleasure
Learners who read confidently and fluently and seek to acquire knowledge independently
The use of rich and exciting texts to complement all areas of the curriculum which stimulates, encourages and enriches the development of reading in all year groups
Children to be analytical of the texts they read and understand the different skills required to fully comprehend a text

During their time with us, all pupils need to develop broad range of skills within reading. To ensure that learning is targeted at the appropriate challenge level, skills progression documents are used.

Reading Progression of Skills

What are we doing in school?

Whole School

Reading books changed regularly
Volunteers in school to hear your child read
Teachers and Teaching Assistants regularly hear your child read
Praise through certificates and stickers for reading
Partake in a variety of book-themed days e.g. World Book Day

EYFS

Introduce phonics through our chosen systematic, synthetic phonics scheme: Essential Letters and Sounds (see phonics section)
Reading through continuous provision and role play areas
A language-rich environment
Comprehension through story time

KS1

Phonics up to Phase 6 through our chosen systematic, synthetic phonics scheme: Essential Letters and Sounds (see phonics section)
Book-led curriculum
Taught comprehension lessons to build on reading skills
Reading areas in all classrooms
Access to the whole school library
Interventions for those needing extra support with reading
Storytime

KS2

Taught comprehension lessons to build on reading skills
Book-led curriculum
Designated independent reading time throughout the week
Access to the whole school library
Storytime
Further developing the love for reading

What can you do at home?

Whole School

Read every night for up to 20 minutes
Listen to your child read regularly as this develops fluency and stamina
Let them hear you read – a good bedtime story is always a hit!
Explore new vocabulary together – e.g. ‘asking what does this word mean?’
Repetition of their favourite book
Take a visit to your local library: https://www.wakefield.gov.uk/libraries-and-local-history/your-local-library/wakefield-library
Don’t forget to log all your reading on our online reading record app ‘BoomReader’

Upper Foundation

To best support us in teaching your child how to read, we ask that you read the decodable text provided by the school 4 times across the week. A decodable text is a book a child can access independently as it only contains sounds that they have learnt. Spending 10 minutes a day reading with your child will hugely support them in their journey to becoming an independent reader. We will be changing children’s decodable books once a week on Fridays. This allows your child to re-read each text several times building their confidence and fluency. This is especially important as they begin to learn that the sounds within our language can be spelt in different ways.

Year 1

In Year 1 your child will continue to read decodable books four times a week. This is matched closely with their phonetic knowledge and teaching. In your child’s reading folder, you will find a reading scheme book matched with their sound knowledge, a decodable book and sounds your child does not know so that these can be practised at home.

Writing

We inspire our children to write using a book-led curriculum and real-life experiences. We aim to engage and stimulate all children to write through what they experience in school. We believe that writing must allow children to use their imagination and engage with a range of genres. It is also crucial that we teach children grammar concepts that enable them to become proficient and accurate writers providing them with life-long writing skills. Our aim is for children to leave our school being passionate and confident writers.

The English leader carefully selects a variety of texts, stories and video clips to inspire writing and to create a sequence of lessons that build on features, vocabulary, planning, drafting and editing. A ‘Diverse Reading Spine’ has been created so that children have the opportunity to explore texts that include the protected characteristics.

Each week, children plan and write an extended piece of writing that links closely to the book and provides them with a purpose. Children then reflect and edit their writing by themselves and with their peers. Teachers use our ‘Progression of Genres’ document to ensure children continue to progress throughout their time at school.

To ensure that learning is targeted at the appropriate challenge level, skills progression documents are used.

Writing - Progression of Skills Diverse Reading Spine Writing - Progression of Genres

Phonics

Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) is our chosen Phonics programme. The aim of ELS is ‘Getting all children to read well, quickly’. It teaches children to read by identifying the phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (the written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words.

Children begin learning Phonics at the very beginning of Upper Foundation and it is explicitly taught every day during a dedicated slot on the timetable. Children are given the knowledge and the skills to then apply this independently.

Throughout the day, children will use their growing Phonics knowledge to support them in other areas of the curriculum and will have many opportunities to practise their reading. This includes reading 1:1 with a member of staff, with a partner during paired reading, and as a class.

Children continue daily Phonics lessons in Year 1 and further through the school to ensure all children become confident, fluent readers.

We follow the ELS progression and sequence. This allows our children to practise their existing phonic knowledge whilst building their understanding of the ‘code’ of our language GPCs (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence). As a result, our children can tackle any unfamiliar words that they might discover.

Children experience the joy of books and language whilst rapidly acquiring the skills they need to become fluent independent readers and writers. ELS teaches relevant, useful and ambitious vocabulary to support each child’s journey to becoming fluent and independent readers.

We begin by teaching the single letter sounds before moving to diagraphs ‘sh’ (two letters spelling one sound), trigraphs ‘igh’ (three letters spelling one sound) and quadgraphs ‘eigh’ (four letters spelling one sound).

We teach children to:

Decode (read) by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together to read fluently
Encode (write) by segmenting each sound to write words accurately.

The structure of ELS lessons allows children to know what is coming next, what they need to do, and how to achieve success. This makes it easier for children to learn the GPCs we are teaching (the alphabetic code) and how to apply this when reading.

ELS is designed on the principle that children should ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’. Since interventions are delivered within the lesson by the teacher, any child who is struggling with the new knowledge can be immediately targeted with appropriate support. Where further support is required, 1:1 interventions are used. These interventions are short, specific and effective.

What can you do at home?

Terms Used in Class

phoneme- the smallest unit of sound in a word.
grapheme – letter or a group of letters representing one sound, e.g. s, sh, ch, igh.
digraph – two letters making one sound, e.g. sh, th, ph.
vowel digraphs – two vowels which, together, make one sound, e.g. ai, oo, ow.
split digraph – two letters, split, making one sound, e.g. a-eas in make or i-e in kite
VC word: vowel consonant e.g. up
CVC: consonant vowel consonant e.g. cap.
CCVC: consonant consonant vowel consonant e.g. clap.
vowels – the open sounds / letters of the alphabet: a, e, i, o and u
consonants – sounds/ letters of the alphabet that are not vowels.
blend – to merge individual sounds together to pronounce a word, e.g. s-n-a-p, blended together, reads snap.
segment- to split up a word into its individual phonemes in order to spell it, e.g. the word ‘cat’ has three phonemes: /c/, /a/, /t/

Strategies to Help Your Child

Try to say the short sound of the letter, not the letter name. This will help children when they come to blend words together. E.g. the letter names dee-oh-gee don’t blend together to make ‘dog’ (please see the videos below to support this below)
When you are reading to your child, emphasise the rhyming words and ask what is special about them.
Initial letter sound hunt – Say a sound to your child and see if they can find something in their house that starts with that letter. This also works well with ‘I spy’ but remember to use the letter sound and not its name.
Songs – Sing nursery rhymes and traditional songs with your child and talk to them about the patterns that they notice in the words

Parent Information Sheet

As the children progress through school, they are taught different skills relating to grammar, punctuation, spelling and comprehension. We have created Parent Information Sheets so that you can see what will be covered in your child’s year group and how you can support them with their learning at home.

Lower Foundation English Parent Information Sheet Upper Foundation English Parent Information Sheet Year 1 English Parent Information Sheet Year 2 English Parent Information Sheet Year 3 English Parent Information Sheet Year 4 English Parent Information Sheet Year 5 English Parent Information Sheet Year 6 English Parent Information Sheet Learning to talk: 3 to 5 years