Early Reading and Phonics programme

The acquisition of reading skills is essential in order to enable children to access learning in every area of the curriculum. At Our Lady of Victories we place the highest importance on teaching children to read as early as possible.

We follow the systematic Synthetic Phonics programme developed by Read Write Inc. (RWI), which is introduced as soon as children are ready.

All staff have attended training in using the programme and receive regular refresher sessions. Parents also receive support through regular workshops, as we feel strongly that parent involvement in their children's reading is vital if children are to make the rapid and secure progress they need in order to be successful.

The intent behind our use of this reading programme is:

      *To enable children to become competent, confident and enthusiastic readers from
      an early age     
      *To provide all children access to and challenge within the wider curriculum

We plan to implement this through:             

• *Having a systematic, structured and “praise-focused” approach to teaching children phonic sounds
• *A clear understanding amongst all staff of how we support children to transfer from reading phonetically to reading fluently 
• *Daily phonics and guided reading sessions 
• *Daily 1:1 reading with the teacher, TA or knowledgeable parent readers 
• *Daily reading at home supported by close communication with parents through a home-school reading record  *Encouraging children to read their books 2 to 3 times before changing them to ensure that they can read aloud confidently with fluency and expression.
• *Weekly visits from KS2 “Reading Buddies” Library sessions once a week, again giving children access to high quality reading material
• *Regular assessment of children’s phonic knowledgeInformation sessions for teachers, support staff, parents and parent readers
• *Books closely matched to each child’s phonics knowledge (SY and NS currently sorting through; termly PM benchmarking)
• *Structured, daily 1:1 interventions for children who fall behind and those who are new to English/the school -
• *Dedicated story time for 30 minutes at the end of each day so that teachers can share high quality texts to the children, full of rich vocabulary 
• What we expect the impact will be:            

• *Children who can read fluently and with expression from an early age
• *Children who genuinely love to read
• *Children who speak articulately about their reading
• *Children who write and spell confidently
• *Children who “have a go” – a positive attitude that they can apply to all other areas of the curriculum*  
• *Children who attain highly in National Tests e.g. Phonics Screening Check/Statutory Assessment Tests in Years 2 and 6                                                            

• The programme ensures that all children are able to read and to spell the words they meet in their reading which is carefully matched to stage of development and ability. 
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• You can see the progression of the sounds and their spellings, which are taught as part of the programme, here. These are arranged into 3 sets, progressing through levels of difficulty and enabling the children to learn all 44 phonemes for the sounds in the English language here:      RWI sets 1, 2 and 3 sounds      
• Parents are encouraged to use the link to the RWI website which demonstrates the correct pronunciations of each sound:     RWI for parents

• Children who arrive at the school post delivery of the early reading programme receive catch up interventions, using the RWI Fresh Start materials.
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• Further information about the Read, Write Inc scheme and reading can be found using this link