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Location & Contact Details

Address

Victoria Road,
Runcorn,
Cheshire,
WA7 5BN

Contact Number

01928 574644

Email Address

sec.victoriaroad@halton.gov.uk

Events Calendar

march, 2024

Phonics and Reading

 Phonics and Reading

Our Subject Leaders for Phonics and Reading are: Mrs G Neal & Mrs K Sowerby

Curriculum Statement
Intent

At Victoria Road Primary School, we believe that a quality Reading and Phonics curriculum should instil in children a love of reading that will last a lifetime and enable them to make effective contributions to society. Our rigorous and well-structured curriculum provides many purposeful opportunities for reading and discussion across all areas of the curriculum and we aim to ensure that all of our children are giving the learning opportunities to achieve their full potential . Giving pupils key skills in Reading and Phonics enables them to access material in all curriculum areas and provides a foundation for their learning throughout their time in school.

Implementation

Our Reading curriculum is designed to expose children to a range of high-quality texts. This, we believe, ensures that children develop a love of reading throughout a range of genres and develop a secure knowledge-base in English. The National Curriculum objectives for each year group are followed and this ensures progression in all key areas. Rigorous assessment and review will ensure that we are able to provide targeted support so that all children experience success in Reading.

Early reading is supported through the ‘success for all’ scheme. Regular training sessions ensure that staff are equipped to teach with the expertise and skills required to promote excellent progress as well as a love of reading. In KS2, once children have completed their phonics programme, they develop deeper reading skills through discreet reading lessons. Each class visit our school library and this provides them with reading material which promotes reading for enjoyment. Our core text approach to writing places reading as the base of our curriculum. Our spine is carefully designed to assure that children are reading a range of genre that is suitable to the needs of their age group. To ensure this progression, we have based our reading spine on ‘The Five Plagues of the Developing Reader’ from ‘Reading Reconsidered’ by Doug Lemov. As a school who prioritise the love of reading, children have access to many reading opportunities throughout the school year such as competitions and author visits. 

 

Impact

Children at Victoria Road Primary school will have a passion and enjoyment in reading across all areas of the curriculum. They are able to use language to communicate their ideas, views and feelings with confidence.

Reading

“I do believe that something magical can happen when you read a book”

J. K. Rowling

Phonics

In School, phonics is delivered through the Fischer Family Trust – Success for All. Generally children will work on: Phase 1-4 in Reception, Phase 4-5 in Year 1 and Phase 6 in year 2.

Children complete the ‘Phonics Screening Test’ at the end of Year 1. Children who do not pass the test at the end of Year 1 are required to retake this test at the end of Year 2. Children continue to be monitored and supported throughout school until they meet the standard. In Key Stage 1, phonic sessions take place daily and children are grouped to take part in activities appropriate to their current stage and needs.

In Key Stage 2, there is a provision of intervention groups for children who are still not secure with Phases 1-6 which focus on recognition of all grapheme / phoneme representations through investigation and developing spelling patterns. Intervention groups will also be supported through FFT..

In addition to this, some children complete activities on ‘Reading Plus’which is a computer-based reading software designed to support improving their skills as a reader.

 

Reading

Reading is a key priority within the school curriculum because we acknowledge that in order to access any area of the curriculum successfully and independently reading has to be fully developed. We have ensured through our early reading and teaching of systematic phonics, that children have the necessary reading skills to fully access the ambitious Key Stage 2 curriculum. 

At Victoria Road Primary School, we prioritise early reading because we understand that ‘Reading is the gateway to Learning’ and is crucial to children’s future academic success. Reading is a two-dimensional skill of language comprehension and word reading and we ensure that both elements are carefully planned, giving our children the best possible start in their early reading journey. We understand that both the role of the adult and the quality of the learning environment is crucial to language comprehension and opportunities to share and talk through a story and a rhyme are plentiful.

As part of our Early Reading Curriculum offer we have planned a quality rich reading spine that enables children to develop the skills to be a passionate reader and acquire a wide vocabulary. Our curriculum ensures children are exposed to high-quality literature through the use of our daily ‘Talking through Stories’ sessions, weekly Rhyme Time and Favourite Five texts. It is our aim that through our early reading curriculum our children will develop a lifelong love of reading and build up a repertoire of familiar stories and rhymes. In addition, through exposing our children to high quality literature we can offer our children a wide range of experience through story and promote diversity and exposure to the wider community. As the children move into Key Stage 1 children continue their reading journey, following the FFT phonic scheme which dovetails into Routes to Reading. The Reading Spine is continued throughout Key Stage 1 and 2  which promotes inclusion, diversity and reading for pleasure. It inspires, connects and engages through high quality texts from contemporary and classic authors.

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