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Reading, including Phonics

Spoken Language

Pupils should be taught to:

  • listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers
  • ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
  • use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary
  • articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
  • give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings
  • maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments
  • use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas
  • speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English
  • participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play/improvisations and debates
  • gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)
  • consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others
  • select and use appropriate registers for effective communication

Phonics and Reading

Developing best practice in systematic synthetic phonics teaching from school-based early year’s provision to the end of Key Stage 1, and as the primary reading strategy throughout the school. This includes:

  • Implementation of Bug Club phonics scheme as a single systematic synthetic phonics programme;
  • supporting the effective use of decodable books in the early stages of learning to read, as a way of establishing phonic decoding;
  • supporting effective practice in formative assessment in relation to phonics/early reading, in line with National Curriculum guidelines.

Moving through to create confident readers, with a love of not only gaining knowledge but also reading for enjoyment.

  • Supporting whole school reading approaches in line with reading comprehension progression;
  • reading to or with children at least once a day and encouraging reading at home; 
  • ensuring that reading and language is embedded across the curriculum and is taught in a purposeful way;
  • children are confident presenting their work and using different types of texts to achieve their goals;
  • developing teachers’ knowledge of appropriate children’s literature.

For further information regarding the teaching of Phonics please contact Ms Morgan or Mrs Cobbold, our Phonics and Reading Leads, by emailing info@northdowns.surrey.sch.uk