South Hill Primary School

Reading and Phonics

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Early Reading, starting with phonics, forms the foundational building blocks of learning. At South Hill School, we teach children the skills to become confident readers, so that they can access our whole curriculum.  

 

Phonics: (Prime Book)

The Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) teaching programme we use at South Hill School is the 'Read Write Inc' (RWI) phonics scheme. The resources and books give the children structured programme of development for their reading and writing. 

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When learning phonics in order to read the children will:

·         Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts

·         Learn to read words using Fred Talk (eg. c-a-t)

·         Read lively stories featuring words they have learnt to sound out

·         Show that they comprehend the stories by answering questions

·         Bring home PRIME books which match the focus phonics sound(s) they have been learning that week.

 

When using phonics in order to write the children will:

·         Learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent 44 sounds

·         Learn to write words by saying the sounds in Fred Talk

·         Write simple sentences           

 

All pupils start phonics learning when they join our EYFS classes and children are grouped according to assessments, carried out individually at the end of each half term, to ensure progression and that they are accessing books at the correct phonetic level.

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Pupils work through the SSP teaching programme in EYFS and Key Stage 1. As pupils graduate from the RWI programme, they move to learning the National Curriculum Spelling Rules and applying VIPERS skills for reading comprehension.

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Any pupil who still needs additional phonic understanding to support their reading in Key Stage 2 will receive this via RWI interventions.

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Guided Reading: (Power Book)

Reading is more than decoding words using phonetic knowledge. This is why we teach whole class Guided Reading daily across the school; developing the VIPERS skills: 

• Vocabulary 

• Infer

• Predict

• Explain

• Retrieve

• Sequence or Summarise

 

Children take home 1 or 2 POWER reading books which are colour banded according to ability. These books may contain words that are not phonetically decodable for the child but they are used to develop the VIPERS skills.

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Library / Pleasure for Reading: (Pleasure Book)

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At South Hill School, we have our own school library. The library enhances our children’s experience of reading for pleasure. Each class visits the library weekly and children take home a PLEASURE reading book of their choosing.

 

Class teachers also read to their classes regularly and share books they have enjoyed with pupils as well as encouraging pupils to recommend books they have enjoyed to one another.