Reading and Phonics

Reading, phonics and spelling is bespoke to your child’s stage of learning and development. Starting in the Nursery, children are assessed by Mrs Banks, our Reading Leader to establish the correct reading band and group.Assessments then take place at least every six weeks, or more frequently for accelerated learners or those children requiring additional support.

The daily RWI group lesson includes reading, spelling, handwriting, grammar and comprehension. In Years One, Two, Three and Four, there is an additional afternoon lesson to consolidate sound recognition and speed of reading.

For the bottom 20% of readers within each year group, catch-up is provided through one-to-one tutoring and a bespoke reading programme is drawn up and managed by Mrs Banks. These children are closely monitored in their progress, with the scheduling of fortnightly assessments. Families of these children are strongly encouraged to come into school to discuss their child's progress with Mrs Banks and seek advice about how to help at home.

To promote a love of reading children will  learn through: 

• Read, Write, Inc. ( to ensure every child has a secure phonetic understanding and is a confident reader). Children are taught in small RWI colour banded groups across EYFS and KS1 
• Pathways to Write (Language to Literacy Group)
• Accelerated Reader / STAR Reader
• Read, Write, Inc. Spelling (Language to Literacy Group)
• Voice 21
• Talking through Stories (Reading fluency & vocabulary building)
• We listen to children read at least twice a week and for those children requiring additional support this is increased to daily reading with their teacher. 
• Daily teacher reading to their class
• Reading across the curriculum / Curriculum library
• Reading for pleasure 

RWI teachers send links on Class Dojo for the practising of sounds and reading of  E-books every week. Teachers can remind you of your child's unique user name and password to log in to the oxford owl website. 

RWI Book bag books / Accelerated Reader books are also provided at the end of each week. These books are carefully selected to link to the sounds and words taught in each child's RWI lessons throughout that week in school. 

We offer a weekly 'Read with Me' session where we invite parents in to their child's class where they can enjoy a 20 minute reading session with their child. 

We encourage children to bring their book bags in daily and change them every Friday. Children are encouraged to read the same book throughout the week to develop their reading fluency. Each week they choose a book bag book which is closely linked to the book they've been reading in school.

We follow talk through stories to ensure that by the time children leave year 1 they have an in depth undertstanding of a range of texts. We look in detail at the skill of storytelling and emersive vocabulary  to give children the skills of using tier 2 vocabulary in their everyday lives. This coupled with daily story time ensures that children develop a love for reading!

Information for Parents: https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/