Early Reading at Charnwood
Early reading
At Charnwood we believe that children require reading skills in order to open the door to the wider curriculum.
Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 ready fully decodable books in a small group with an adult three times per week. These books are then allocated for children to build their reading fluency and apply their skills at home.
These three reading sessions each have a focus – decoding, prosody and comprehension. We use fully decodable books that are closely matched to their reading ability.
Phonics
Our intent is to equip our pupils with the skills and knowledge required to become fluent readers by age seven. We follow the Bug Club Phonics SSP programme, which follows the Letters and Sounds progression. As a school we aim to build children’s speaking and listening skills, as well as prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. Practitioners follow a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills to ensure consistency through actions, rhymes and the teaching sequence. However, there is flexibility within the planning to adapt the sessions to make them engaging.
The link below will take you to the PDF where you can find all of the letter formation rhymes:
Handwriting symbols and phrases
Home Readers
Bug Club Phonics is supported by decodable readers, which match the order of phoneme introduction. All of our home readers are decodable and have been organised to match the Bug Club Phonics progression. There are a variety of books to match each unit of the teaching programme. Following half termly assessments, children are matched to the correct unit of home reader. Thus providing an opportunity for the children to practise and consolidate their learning at each stage.
When the children have completed the first two units of Bug Club Phonics, they will have acquired a sufficient number of grapheme–phoneme correspondences to start reading their own books. Prior to this there is a strong focus on communication and language where pre-readers will be sent home with guidance for parents.
The Bug Club also provides a library of eBooks that match the ones we use in our guided reading sessions . These eBooks will be allocated to your child, following their guided reading sessions. These books are designed to support children in practising and consolidating the knowledge they acquire during the guided reading sessions . Bug Club’s online reading world helps children improve core reading skills at school or home with exciting texts and fun rewards. It also enables teachers to monitor every child’s progress.
Each week children will take home a fully decodable book that matches the one they have been reading in our guided reading sessions, as well as reading for pleasure book to be enjoyed with a grown up.
A guide to using the bug club at home can be found here:
Parent guide
At Charnwood we place a great emphasis on our phonics teaching.
Phonics Policy
Rapid Phonics
We use Rapid Phonics to help struggling learners, including children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with SEN to catch up in phonics. These sessions are aimed at years 2-6
Useful documents and links to support your child at home
Phonics parent presentation -Phonics Screening Check
Parent Guide to access Bug Club on line
Useful Links Page
Actions for sounds
Sound mats
Handwriting symbols and phrases
For information on the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, click on the link below:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1164731/Information_for_parents_-_2023_phonics_screening_check.pdf
Phonics and reading games
https://www.phonicsbloom.com/#google_vignette
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/
https://www.teachyourmonster.org/
https://www.starfall.com/h/ltr-classic/
