Early Reading

Children begin learning the basic building blocks of reading: PHONICS.

Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing in the English language by developing learners' phonemic awareness:

The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns (graphemes) that represent them.  In early reading children learn to recognise and put together 'sounds' to make words. They eventually link this to spelling a word and writing the word. Pupils are also taught "tricky words" that are not phonetically regular. Once children are able to recognise a basic range of sounds and put them together to make words they are offered opportunities to read these sounds as a variety of words and sentences.  As confidence and ability grows, children read phonically matched books.

Wigton Moor bespoke Phonics planning is based on 'Letters and Sounds'. We follow the order in which the letters and sounds are introduced in 'Letters and Sounds'.  We aim to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. Our planning sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills with the aim of the children becoming fluent readers by age seven.  Children needing further support in phonics benefit from targeted interventions in both KS1 and KS2. 

Key Stage 1

Reading is taught and practised in KS1 by specific teaching of 'VIPERS' in whole class sessions and guided reading groups and pupils are encouraged to read at home with their parent or carer. More formal schemes are used in KS1, predominantly Oxford Reading Tree and phonically matched books are provided. Once children are more fluent readers, a far greater range of books are on offer with over 30 publishers used by school; these books have been colour banded by staff in school to represent different levels of difficulty.

We are currently updating our Phonics planning. 

Key Stage 2

The banding system continues into KS2 allowing children to select a wide range of reading material. Children access books by using the library to choose books to take home. Specific VIPERS comprehension skills are taught in whole class sessions, with reading materials selected by the teacher to enhance reading skills and linked to the wider curriculum. Book Talk sessions and the sharing of a wide range of books also serve to develop both our reading for pleasure agenda and to broaden vocabulary across the curriculum. 

Congratulations to our new Reading Ambassadors!

Reading is very important at Wigton Moor; we know that children who read regularly perform better at school.

To promote reading and reading for enjoyment, this year we created a new and exciting 'Reading Ambassador' role available to all year 6 pupils. 

After reviewing all the fantastic applications, we appointed 6 children: Olivia, Dylon, Gauri, Aditi, Isabelle and Yesha.

Our new ‘Reading Ambassadors’ will support the staff library team with all sorts of reading related activities!

Looking for Reading Ideas?

Click on the links below for some great reading resources!

https://library.thenational.academy/

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/have-some-fun/fun-at-home-with-authors-and-illustrators/

Or you could consider joining the local library if you would like to borrow any e-books.

https://www.leeds.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/joining-the-library

The Book of Hopes edited by Katherine Rundell

Click on the link to read 'a magical collection of  short stories, poems, essays and pictures'.

Copies of the book have been presented to school and we look forward to sharing them in classes around school too.