Phonics and Reading

At Greenland Community Primary School, we strive to promote a love of reading in all that we do. Our bespoke curriculum has a vast selection of rich and inspirational stories at its heart; we ensure that pupils have lots of opportunities to read in lots of different contexts. We believe that being a fluent and avid reader opens doors for children to the wider world and gives them the tools they need to be lifelong learners. It is our mission to ensure that all children leave us at the end of Year 6 as fluent and avid readers, armed with the tools necessary in order thrive in Key Stage Three and beyond.

At Greenland we use Read Write Inc. (RWI) which is a structured phonics programme designed to help all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. Children learn the 44 common sounds in the English language and how to blend them to read and spell. If any child is finding it challenging, we have swift and effective tutoring programs that run every afternoon to ensure that children “keep up” rather than trying to “catch up”. Throughout the year, we will run parent sessions to help ensure that our families are as comfortable with the approach as we are and that together, we can make an incredible difference to our children’s lives.

We firmly believe that reading is the key that unlocks the whole curriculum so the ability to efficiently decode is essential. Read Write Inc. sessions occur each day in Reception and KS1. In KS2, those children who are still accessing phonics will receive daily phonics lessons each day in small groups, as well as Fast Track Phonics and daily tutoring to support catch up.

Read, Write Inc ensures that children learn the basics of reading and decoding but our wonderful book spine across school enables our children to be immersed in carefully selected, high quality texts.

Key Stage Two

In Key Stage Two, we have daily whole class reading sessions, for those children who have completed the RWI phonics programme, from Year 3 onwards.

Whole class reading is designed to develop reading fluency and children read aloud daily in lessons. We use strategies from Reader’s Theatre which exemplify how guided oral reading instruction and repeated reading of texts can be used to support pupils to develop reading fluency.

The acquisition of vocabulary lies at the heart of our reading curriculum. Carefully selected VIPERS texts, support children's comprehension skills and broaden their vocabulary knowledge. Texts cover a range of genres and text types across all curriculum areas. Planning ensures that all children are exposed to a wide range of reading materials and a broad and balanced reading diet.

VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the six reading domains as part of the reading curriculum. They are the key areas which children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts. VIPERS stands for: Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval and Summarise. Each text has a series of questions which focus on these six domains.

Whole class reading comprehension sessions explicitly model and teach children the skills to answer each question type enabling children to make progress in reading comprehension.

In addition to reading lessons, children in Years 4-6 also have access to Reading Plus up to four times a week outside of the reading lesson.

Reading Plus is an adaptive, online reading programme, which is designed to develop fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills. Like VIPERS texts, Reading Plus exposes children to a diverse range of topical content in line with their ability. Children progress through levels and receive a certificate to motivate them to achieve. Children are also able to access the programme at home through a range of devices.

Daily story time

Children listen to and discuss stories, poems and non- fiction books at the end of the school day. These often link with their current learning project.