Phonics & Reading

Phonics Teaching

We teach phonics daily from Reception up to Year 2 using the government validated scheme Unlocking Letters and Sounds.   There are opportunities for daily interventions for those children that have not quite grasped a new sound in order that they ‘keep up’.  In the Juniors, interventions are run to ensure that all children have the opportunity to consolidate their phonic knowledge.  Teachers also provide children with the teaching and learning they need using the Spelling Shed scheme to support the National Curriculum requirements.

The children in Year 1 take a Phonics Assessment Check in June annually.  For those that did not reach the standard in Year 1, they are assessed again at the end of Year 2.

Reading

At St Michael’s, we encourage reading for pleasure and information each and everyday. We use fully decodable texts from the Unlocking Letters and Sounds scheme.  These books are changed weekly.  It is expected that the children read the book at least three times to improve fluency, prosody (intonation in the voice) and comprehension of the text.  The junior children are encouraged to read books from the classroom library which contains high quality texts. We operate a reading reward scheme to encourage children to read at home, children who read frequently are rewarded with certificates and are able to add this to their Children’s University passport.