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Malden Parochial Church of England Primary School

CEOP

Malden Parochial
Church of England Primary School

Reading and Phonics

Reading, Phonics and Spelling

A child’s ‘reading journey’ begins with ‘learning to read’ and moves on into ‘reading to learn’

At Malden Parochial School, your child’s reading experience is not simply the reading book that comes home. Reading is happening all the time in the classroom. It is taught in English lessons, but children are also practising and using their ‘reading’ throughout the day. They are reading instructions, maths language, information books, topics and signs, displays, registers, charts, games, etc. They are reading on the computer, interactive whiteboard screens and whilst watching television at home too.

Phonics

At Malden Parochial we teach phonics (letter sounds), using the systematic synthetic phonics approach outlined in the Department for Education phonics scheme, ‘Letters and Sounds’. Learning begins in our Nursery and is built upon throughout Reception and Years 1 and 2. The children are taught phonics on a daily basis.

Children learn the sounds then blend them together to read a word. To spell, children are taught to say the word by segmenting it into smaller sounds and then writing it.

Children are also taught to read and spell high frequency words. These are words that they commonly find in the books they read. Some may be ‘tricky words’ which are words that cannot be broken down and deciphered using their phonic skills. The children will be taught to read these by sight.

Letters and Sounds is divided into six phases, which children continue to learn and practice throughout the school.

Nursery - Phase One
Supports the importance of speaking and listening and develops children’s discrimination of sounds, including letter sounds.

Reception - Phase Two
Children learn to pronounce the sounds themselves in response to letters, before
blending them. This leads to them being able to read simple words and captions. For example: d – u – ck

Letters: s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Reception - Phase Three
This phase completes the teaching of the alphabet and moves on to sounds represented by more than one letter (digraph and trigraph). For example: t – or – ch. The children will learn letter names and how to read and spell some high frequency/tricky words.

Letters: j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu, ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

Reception and Year 1 - Phase Four
The children learn to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants.
For example: s – t – a – n – d

Year 1 - Phase Five
The children broaden their knowledge of sounds for use in reading and spelling. They will begin to build word-specific knowledge of the spellings of words.
For example: m – o – n – k – ey

Sounds: ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew, oe, au, ey, a_e, i_e, u_e, o_e

In June, the children in Year 1 are tested on their phonics in a National Phonics Screening check. This is a check of 20 real words and 20 alien words. Parents will receive their child’s results at the end of the summer term.

Year 2 - Phase Six
This focuses on word-specific spellings. It encourages children to become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers. This includes spelling rules such as adding suffixes (- est, - ly, - ful, - ness, - ment, - ing) and prefixes (un…, im…, dis…, re…). Children are also taught how to make plurals and spell homophones such as blue / blew.

In Year 2, the pupils revise previously taught phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (ways of writing the sounds) and learn a range of new ones. Children who do not meet the expected standard in the Year 1 National Phonics Screening, repeat it in Year 2.

High Frequency Words
Children are taught to read and spell the following high frequency words.

Reading

Reading is at the heart of all that we do at Malden Parochial School. We inspire our children to become confident and happy readers with a real love of books, which will last a lifetime. In order to achieve this, we use a number of strategies throughout school to develop their skills as readers.

In Reception, your child will initially bring home wordless books. Books without words have an extremely important part to play in the acquisition of reading skills. The ability to decode words is part of being able to read but being able to understand what is being read and to re-tell the story is vital. Alongside these books you child will be exposed to key words, some that can be sounded out and others that are ‘look and say’ (tricky words). As they develop in confidence, they will be introduced to simple, one sentence a page ‘reading’ books. These books will allow them to practise the phonic skills they have learnt and develop their understanding of text. As they grow in confidence, the books begin to have more complex sentences and a greater variety of vocabulary.

As a child becomes a more confident reader, we will further develop their interests and enjoyment of reading by choosing from a selection of simple ‘chapter’ books and age appropriate information books before ultimately moving on to even more complex texts as their skills develop.

All children are encouraged to enjoy sharing with their parents as many books and different types of texts as possible, not only to help them develop a love of reading, but also to begin to appreciate it as an essential skill and part of everyday life.

Guided reading, shared reading, 1:1 reading, whole-class reading

Our curriculum provides reading opportunities in all areas of learning. Reading skills are explicitly taught through guided, shared or 1:1 reading and according to the needs of the child. Our reading scheme is book banded by colour and is matched to children’s reading ability, which is assessed regularly.

Whole class reading takes place throughout the day as the children read instructions, the day and the date on the board, refer to the class visual timetable, access labelled resources and read text from the Interactive White Board.

Comprehension

Reading is much more than just being able to read words. It is essential that children also read with understanding. As part of the teaching of reading skills at Malden Parochial, staff work on developing the children’s knowledge of the different text types and the varying ways in which information can be presented in books and other publications. Children are also encouraged to think about different authors, the style of books they write, their choices of vocabulary to involve the reader and how they build a story or write a poem.

We develop the skills of comprehension alongside the decoding and sight reading skills to ensure that children learn to read and comprehend at the same speed. We teach this skill through reading to and with the children.

In Key Stage Two children further enhance their fluency, decoding and comprehension. This also helps to further develop children’s independence as readers.

When developing research skills, children are asked to consider which texts and alternative sources are likely to best provide the information they need and to choose the most appropriate. They are taught how to ‘skim read’, pick out key words and information from a piece of text, interpret diagrams and graphs, answer questions and take notes.

We all know that to be able to read fluently, with understanding, is a crucial life skill. We continually use it to make sense of the world around us and to access and share information in the workplace. For some it is also a relaxation and a lifelong pleasure!

Reading and Spelling
Children are expected to read and spell theses words by the end of the academic year stated:

Reception

I	the	and	no	cat
go	of	they	yes	get
come	we	my	for	said
went	this	see	a	to
up	dog	on	dad	in
you	me	away	can
day	like	mum	he
was	going	it	am
look	big	at	all
are	she	play	is

Year 1 and Year 2 – By the end of Key stage one

First 100 High Frequency Words
in frequency order reading down the columns

the	that	not	look	put
and	with	then	don’t	could
a	all	were	come	house
to	we	go	will	old
said	can	little	into	too
in	are	as	back	by
he	up	no	from	day
I	had	mum	children	made
of	my	one	him	time
it	her	them	Mr	I’m
was	what	do	get	if
you	there	me	just	help
they	out	down	now	Mrs
on	this	dad	came	called
she	have	big	oh	here
is	went	when	about	off
for	be	it’s	got	asked
at	like	see	their	saw
his	some	looked	people	make
but	so	very	your	an

Next 200 High Frequency Words

in frequency order reading down the columns (water to laughed then let's to grow)

water	bear	find	these	live
away	Can’t	more	began	say
good	again	I’ll	boy	soon
want	cat	round	animals	night
over	long	tree	never	narrator
how	things	magic	next	small
did	new	shouted	first	car
man	after	us	work	couldn’t
going	wanted	other	lots	three
where	eat	food	need	head
would	everyone	fox	that’s	king
or	our	through	baby	town
took	two	way	fish	I’ve
school	has	been	gave	around
think	yes	stop	mouse	every
home	play	must	something	garden
who	take	red	bed	fast
didn’t	thought	door	may	only
ran	dog	right	still	many
know	well	sea	found	laughed

let’s	fun	any	better	lived
much	place	under	hot	birds
suddenly	mother	hat	sun	duck
told	sat	snow	across	horse
another	boat	air	gone	rabbit
great	window	trees	hard	white
why	sleep	had	floppy	coming
cried	feet	tea	really	he’s
keep	morning	top	wind	river
room	queen	eyes	wish	liked
last	each	fell	eggs	giant
jumped	book	friends	once	looks
because	its	box	please	use
even	green	dark	thing	along
am	different	grandad	stopped	plants
before	let	there’s	ever	dragon
gran	girl	looking	miss	pulled
clothes	which	end	most	we’re
tell	inside	than	cold	fly
key	run	best	park	grow

Year 3 and Year 4

accident(ally)	early	knowledge	purpose
actual(ly)	earth	learn	quarter
address	eight/eighth	length	question
answer	enough	library	recent
appear	exercise	material	regular
arrive	experience	medicine	reign
believe	experiment	mention	remember
bicycle	extreme	minute	sentence
breath	famous	natural	separate
breathe	favourite	naughty	special
build	February	notice	straight
busy/business	forward(s)	occasion(ally)	strange
calendar	fruit	often	strength
caught	grammar	opposite	suppose
centre	group	ordinary	surprise
century	guard	particular	therefore
certain	guide	peculiar	though/although
circle	heard	perhaps	thought
complete	heart	popular	through
consider	height	position	various
continue	history	possess(ion)	weight
decide	imagine	possible	woman/women
describe	increase	potatoes
different	important	pressure
difficult	interest	probably
disappear	island	promise

Year 5 and 6

accommodate	correspond	identity	queue
accompany	criticise (critic + ise)	immediate(ly)	recognise
according	curiosity	individual	recommend
achieve	definite	interfere	relevant
aggressive	desperate	interrupt	restaurant
amateur	determined	language	rhyme
ancient	develop	leisure	rhythm
apparent	dictionary	lightning	sacrifice
appreciate	disastrous	marvellous	secretary
attached	embarrass	mischievous	shoulder
available	environment	muscle	signature
average	equip (-ped, -ment)	necessary	sincere(ly)
awkward	especially	neighbour	soldier
bargain	exaggerate	nuisance	stomach
bruise	excellent	occupy	sufficient
category	existence	occur	suggest
cemetery	explanation	opportunity	symbol
committee	familiar	parliament	system
communicate	foreign	persuade	temperature
community	forty	physical	thorough
competition	frequently	prejudice	twelfth
conscience	government	privilege	variety
conscious	guarantee	profession	vegetable
controversy	harass	programme	vehicle
convenience	hindrance	pronunciation	yacht