Reading and Phonics
At Trinity Academy St Chad’s, we value reading greatly. We aim to inspire a love of reading through the introduction of high-quality, exciting texts spanning a range of genres, encompassing stories, poetry and non-fiction texts. We want children to be confident readers, who love language and enjoy reading a wide range of texts. Teachers share their own love of reading with the children and encourage talk about books and authors.
We recognise the vital role of reading for language development. Pupils are taught strategies to independently deduce the meaning of new words they encounter – such as through considering context cues and exploring the morphology of words – allowing for direct links to be made with spelling and grammar. Children also learn about the etymology of words and their relationships with other languages: this helps to promote curious learners, respect for other cultures and consolidates long term learning.
At the academy, we understand the importance of children getting off to a successful start with reading, this being key to them becoming avid and motivated readers later. We follow a validated, systematic synthetic phonics programme to support this rapid development of reading skills – Read Write Inc. All teaching staff are fully trained in this programme. Children participate in daily phonics sessions and the phonics books sent home to read are matched to their point of reading development. These books contain only sounds they have previously learned, increasing their likelihood of success, thus increasing their motivation to read. Children are closely tracked in terms of their phonics skills, enabling children who are falling behind to be identified quickly so that additional support can be offered where needed.
In KS2, whole class guided reading sessions are used as a means for teachers to develop children’s reading fluency, comprehension and book talk. Increasingly complex texts are studied as children move through the academy. We employ the Accelerated Reader programme to ensure children read books that are appropriate for their point of reading development. We have a dedicated library with books from a range of authors, writing styles and genres to encourage a broad diet of literature for every child. The Accelerated Reader programme allows us to closely track the progress of children’s reading, enabling us to identify children who may need additional teacher support or guidance and to celebrate success.
