Reading at Wigton Moor

Reception:

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 vocabulary and sentences.

As confidence and ability grows "Floppy's Phonics" is used as a book to take home to read.

Wigton Moor follows 'Letters and Sounds'.  A phonics resource published by the Department for Education and Skills in 2007. It aims 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. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children starting by the age of five, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven.

Key Stage 1

Reading is taught and practised in KS1 by specific teaching, guided reading and pupils are encouraged to read at home with their parent or carer. More formal schemes are used in KS1, predominantly Oxford Reading Tree. 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.

Key Stage 2

The banding system continues into KS2 allowing children to use a wide range of reading material at a level appropriate for them. Children access books by using the library to choose books to take home. Guided and shared reading takes place in whole class sessions and small groups during lessons with reading material selected by the teacher to enhance reading skills and linked to the wider curriculum.