Lace Hill Academy

Reading and Phonics

Reading and Phonics at Lace Hill Academy

Reading

Reading is an integral part of Lace Hill Academy’s curriculum. We believe in providing all pupils with rich experiences and opportunities to read throughout the school day. Books are at the core of teaching English. Each class has a text, this could be a story book, a poem, and an article or non-fiction text. By embedding books into our curriculum children gain deeper understanding, skills and knowledge of reading and writing.

Class novels are shared with children daily. Teachers explicitly model reading skills through this enjoyable experience. Children are exposed to new vocabulary and deepen their comprehension skills.

Reading scheme

We follow the Collins Big Cat reading scheme. From early phonic development to fluent reading, Collins Big Cat is a whole-school programme that provides complete support for primary reading. Reading books are fully decodable and expertly aligned to Letters and Sounds (phonics scheme).

 

Additionally we use colour banded books from Pearson Bug Club, various series from Oxford Publishing and Badger Books.

​Children take home reading books that are a mix of phonics based/fluency and comprehension books that go across a wide variety of genres.

In Reception and Key-stage 1 children, where appropriate, take home books that complement the phonics unit being taught and a book designed to help fluency/comprehension. Your child’s teacher will send home phonics books each week linked to either the current sound or sound(s) they have recently learnt.

 

Reading lessons

 

In Key-stage 1 (Year 1 and Year 2).  Children have daily group reading lessons to teach six reading skills: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing. A variety of book banded fiction and non-fictions books with a range or genre are used in the lessons.

 

In Key-stage 2 (Years 3 to 6). Reading is taught through whole class teaching sessions. The reading skills taught are: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising. Class novels and topic linked texts are used in teaching for learning reading skills.

 

 

Progression of knowledge, skills and understanding in Reading

Phonics

At Lace Hill Academy we follow the systematic approach to teach phonics using Letters and Sounds, this is supplemented with resources from the Collins Big Cat Song of Sounds phonics scheme.

 

Letters and Sounds document can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190599/Letters_and_Sounds_-_DFES-00281-2007.pdf

 

Song of Sounds is a multi-sensory programme, with kinaesthetic, auditory and visual activities that reinforce skills through a variety of learning styles. It is a highly active approach with a song to help children remember every phoneme and whole-body actions to aid learning.

Progression of knowledge, skills and understanding in Phonics