Reading & Phonics

Our approach to the teaching of Reading and Phonics

Emmbrook Infant school sees the enjoyment of reading and the skills involved as a core teaching priority and it is given high status in planning, teaching and the environment.

Children read every day through a consistent system of individual, shared, guided and independent reading opportunities. Children are exposed to a strong literacy spine of reading material and high quality texts which are introduced from E.Y.F.S onwards through cross curricular projects, drama, and storytelling. Reading is promoted by teachers and adults reading daily to the children and engaging new readers within a language rich environment. Reading texts are organised by difficulty within the book banding system and include narratives and non fiction, with a large bank of graded phonically decidable readers providing a resource scaffold. These texts are read alongside high quality texts across the school.

The promotion of storytelling across the school develops pupils’ vocabularies and oral competencies.

Fluent readers develop from the teaching of a wide range of reading skills including a rigorous, systematic phonic programme based on Letters and Sounds. Pupils are grouped for phonics and their attainment and pace of learning is matched to planning. Phonic teaching is taught in ability settings in daily 20 minute sessions. These are varied, fast paced, multi sensory and engaging opportunities to develop decoding skills and essential phonic knowledge. Progress is carefully monitored and assessed in order to inform planning. Pupils are given lots of opportunities to practise and secure skills learnt within the learning environment, reading decodable texts and experiencing continued success. Success is celebrated at every level in order to develop confident readers. Reading intervention programmes run through the school to support pupils who need extra help at different stages of their reading journey.