Literacy Leaders

Miss C McGinnes (EYFS & KS1)
Miss C Baxter (KS2)

Our philosophy
At Wombwell Park Street Primary School, we believe that the skills gained from reading are invaluable. The opportunity for each child to leave our school equipped with the skills and strategies to support them in reading fluently, interpreting and processing written information is of paramount importance. We believe that reading underpins the broad curriculum that we offer, as all learners need to read in context, whether this be in Maths, Science, History or so on.

However, reading also extends beyond the parameters of our school; reading governs a significant amount of the world around us. It is therefore vital that, working a partnership between staff and parents is embedded in daily practice to ensure that all children attending Wombwell Park Street Primary School, are provided with opportunities to develop and strengthen their independent reading skills.
 
Our programme of study
As a school, we have high expectations of our learners right from entry to the school. Reading looks slightly different however as your child progresses through school. In their first few years the emphasis on early reading is centered around phonics and the child's ability to read by correlating sounds with symbols in an alphabetic writing system. Words are made up from small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words. By the end of Year 1, children are expected to sit the statutory Phonics Screening Check to show how well they can apply the key reading skills they have been taught. The books children engage with up until this point are phonically decodable at a level which matches their current phonic knowledge.

As children become more confident in applying their phonics they will build their fluency and soon will become confident, fluent and independent readers. Children will move away from phonics books at this point, and on to age appropriate books which have been broadly researched and identified as appropriate to their year group. These are aimed at exposing children to new concepts, ideas and vocabulary. In addition, children also begin to unpick texts on a deeper level. This is known as comprehension, and illustrates the extent to which the text has been understood. This involves looking at different questions that can be asked around a text and developing appropriate. accurate responses. 

Early reading: A Read, Write, Inc approach
​We have very recently introduced the highly successful Read Write Inc approach to teaching early reading skills. As a school we are dedicated to ensuring that every child is able to read by the end of Key Stage 1.  In order to effectively deliver this approach, all staff who are delivering phonics intervention have attended Ruth Miskin Training to ensure they are highly skilled in providing well planned, rigorous sessions to raise the standards in reading and writing for our children.  The Read Write Inc Phonics programme is used as soon as the children start in Reception and continues through Year 1 on a daily basis (as well as consolidating learning for those pupils in Year 2 who may be re-entered for the Phonics Screening Check the following year).  We strongly believe that any child who needs learning reinforced should receive this at the earliest possible point, in order to "keep up, not catch up",  Using Read Write Inc we hope that by the end of Year 1 all children will have learned to read effortlessly so that they can put all their energy into comprehending what they read, as well as spelling effortlessly so that they can put their energy into composing what they write.
To find out more about the programme and for information about how to support your child at home, click on the links below​:

RWI INFORMATION FOR PARENTS
SLIDESHOW - WHY READ AT HOME?
SLIDESHOW - WHAT IS RWI?
SLIDESHOW - UNDERSTANDING PHONICS
SLIDESHOW - SOUND PRONUNCIATION
SLIDESHOW - SOUND BLENDING
​
If you would like further information regarding the Phonics Screening Check, this can be accessed using the links below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-2019-materials
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/838142/2020_NCA_academic_calendar.pdf

​The sound that the children are taught are split into sets. They are listed here:
​set-1 sounds
Download File


set-2 sounds
Download File


set-3 sounds
Download File

Reading beyond phonics
For those children who have successfully mastered Early Reading skills, our children move towards refining their accuracy and fluency through more challenging texts, whilst simultaneously working to develop their understanding of the text through targeted questioning. Our staff select high quality texts which are deemed as age appropriate and use these to instill a love of reading, as well as opportunities to understand what is being read. In order for our children to meet the current expectations in reading they need to demonstrate competency of the following skills: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval, summarising. The ability to answer such questions is a constant focus beyond phonics and VIPERS are clearly displayed in all classes to remind children of the types of questions they can be asked. To ensure that all children are exposed to high quality texts, ambitious language and Higher Order Thinking Questions, we have adopted a whole class reading approach where all children engage with the whole class reader a minimum of four times per week.  

Reading for pleasure
Reading is a priority in our school as we firmly believe it is a gateway to all other learning. However, we are passionate about children reading for pleasure as well as for purpose.  What we  strive to achieve is a consistency for our children in their overall outlook on reading. As early as possible, we hope to inspire a love of reading in our children, a deep rooted appreciation and a recognition of books as worlds just waiting to be opened and a chance for their mind to imagine beyond the constraints of reality. With this in mind, our children are encouraged to enjoy books that they find engaging through 10 minute reads which are built into the daily timetable. 

We also have a number of incentives and reward systems in place for children. From Reception to Year 6, children are encouraged to read every evening for at least 10 minutes, as and when possible.  Parents can then sign this off in their child's 'Reading Record Diary' and they are rewarded with a stamp in school.  Once the child reads 25 times, they are presented with a reward card in Golden Book assembly on a Friday.  These rewards continue when the children reach 50, 100, 150 and 200 times.  We have found this to have a massive impact on children having a love of reading and implemented termly rewards for children reading 100, 200 and 300 times in each respective term. Our rewards involve prize draws for book vouchers, a Biscuits, Brew and Books events with parents and a Reading Red Carpet event at the end of the school year. We have found that since introducing these incentives there has been a bigger uptake of children reading regularly at home which is wonderful to see!


End of Year expectations for Reading can be found on each class' web page. These are specific to each of the relevant year groups.