Reading

Teaching: At St. Malachy's we use 'Read Write Inc.' as our Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme. This programme is followed with rigor and fidelity by all teachers and teaching assistants. Phonics lessons are taught to all children, daily in Year’s 1, 2 and Reception. To ensure that learning is embedded, flashcards and reading opportunities continue throughout the day and additional phonics teaching is given to identified children. Phonics remains the main strategy that we use to approach/decode unfamiliar words and spelling across the school.

Home Reading at Early Years and Key Stage 1 Expectations: Before books are taken home, children take home Word Lists. Children should be proficient independent blenders before books are taken home. Each child reads with an adult in school at least once a week. Those children working within the Read Write Inc. Scheme have their reading books selected by their Read Write Inc. teacher to match the sounds that they are currently working on or need to practice. This way the books become a focused tool to support progress. Children will have their book changed twice per week.

Home Reading at Key Stage 2 Expectations:

Assessment: Individual phonics assessments are completed for all children working within Read Write Inc. every half term. Teachers then use this information to support pupils in moving forwards. Continuous formative assessment is carried out during lessons and this is used to inform any same day intervention or catch up.

Intervention: Children who have been identified as ‘working below the required standard’ should have daily intervention (known as Fast Track Phonics) until back on track. We continue to use Read Write Inc. structures and processes for intervention.

Reading Plus: Children in Years 3-6 complete daily Reading Plus activities. Reading Plus is an online reading programme that's packed full of engaging texts for pupils to explore and enjoy. It teaches silent reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary with software that meets each pupil's individual reading level.

Reading for Pleasure: We hold Reading for Pleasure at the heart of everything we do at St Malachy's so children we encourage children to develop a love for reading in a range of different genres. We have a vibrant library that provides children with a range of texts to choose from. We resource the library books based on children's interests so that these are suitable for all readers. Children take home a library book each week.

Repeated Text Library

At St Malachy’s we have also taken a whole school approach and commitment to developing pupils story language and vocabulary and their love for reading. Each class has a set of books which they repeatedly read throughout the year in order to develop their vocabulary, to help them develop their story language and techniques. Each text has been hand-picked to ensure a coverage of a variety of genres, including poetry and non-fiction. The other texts have been specifically chosen because they have rich vocabulary, are written by a famous authors, promote and teach diversity or are recommended books from the Pie Corbett reading spine. We intend on ingraining the vocabulary and story techniques to our children so by the end of the year, they have developed a bank of ideas to support them in reading and writing.