Our aim at Benedict Academy is to develop children's reading skills and promote a love for reading, by providing them with a strong foundation in phonics using a rigorous linguistic phonics approach.
Phonics
Our approach to phonics begins in EYFS and continues to Year 6. The children, as well as having reading lessons, have explicit phonics lessons throughout their time at Benedict Academy.
This approach looks at the relationship between spoken language and the written word: Pupils study three main skills to enable them to learn to read: blending, the skills of blending graphemes (letters) together; segmenting, separating phonemes (sounds) for spelling; and manipulating, swapping phonemes to develop accuracy in reading. Throughout Key Stage 2, pupils study the origins of words, which will enable them to spell and discover the meaning of new ones.
All teachers receive SoundsWrite (Sounds-Write. A new approach to the teaching of reading, spelling and writing.) training to aid them to deliver linguistic phonics lessons. SoundsWrite takes the children step-by-step through phonics introducing them to the 44 different sounds in the English language and their different spellings gradually and systematically.
We use decodable texts that align with the code that children have been taught to ensure that children have repeated practice of decoding and orthographic mapping, resulting in fluency.
We provide an inclusive phonics environment that is reading rich. There are plenty of opportunities for children to apply their learning at initial sound level, word level and phrase level. For pupils who find it difficult to retain knowledge, we implement regular rehearsal and practice throughout the day. There is a consistent use of resources around the school.
Reading
Reading quickly and fluently unlocks comprehension of written texts. Anything that occupies our attention limits our ability to think and, if our cognitive resources are being used to decode words, then we will have fewer resources with which to consider the meaning of those words. In order to optimise reading fluency, all pupils read aloud in whole class reading lessons.
At Benedict Academy, we select texts above the national reading level for each age group when participating in whole class reading. This is done to support students to read effortlessly and with stamina. We set our expectations high and anticipate that the students will meet those expectations.
Once word decoding and recognition has been mastered, a student’s ability to understand is based on the acquisition of vocabulary, and background knowledge. Therefore, we supplement our reading lessons with History, Geography and RE units of work, understanding the link between narratives and developing schema.
In reading lessons, teachers intersperse class reads with fast paced questions and written responses to an author’s word choices and sentence structures. Where appropriate they delve deeper, to re-read extracts of texts, and support pupils to make meaning from texts. This includes teaching a range of strategies and techniques, such as predicting, clarifying, questioning, summarising and inferring.
Finally, teachers read aloud to pupils daily, to ensure that they have opportunities to hear an expert reader, whilst also developing their understanding of intonation and prosody. This, coupled with visits to our well-stocked library, develops their love of reading.
In every class, children access texts that meet their needs, and a range of decodable readers are available for all pupils. Additional intervention is put into place swiftly and effectively for children working below the age related expectations.