Thorpepark approach to reading

Children at Thorpepark are exposed to quality books and text from the day they start to the day they leave.

Reading is a life skill that we believe every child will learn and develop at our school.

We embed a culture of learning to read and then reading to learn.

Foundation and Key Stage 1

How do we teach children to decode?

At Thorpepark Academy the validated phonics scheme that we follow is ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’. This is a systematic, synthetic phonics programme that was validated by the Department for Education in July 2021. All members of teaching and teaching support staff have completed training modules provided by Little Wandle to ensure a whole school understanding of the approach. As a result, the programme is followed with consistency across the school.

Phonics is a way of teaching pupils to read quickly and skilfully. It is essential that our approach to teaching phonics and reading is accessible to all pupils, regardless of background.

They are taught how to:

• recognise the sounds that each individual letter represents;
• identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make – such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’; and
• blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word.

Pupils can then use this knowledge to ‘de-code’ new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read.

What does it look like in the classroom?

We teach phonics daily in the Reception and Year 1. Phonics is taught from the first day in recaption. By following Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, we are able to ensure our pupils build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As part of this approach, we use Collins Big Cat for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonically decodable books that have been specially designed to match the teaching and learning of the phonics programme.  These books are carefully and precisely matched to the child’s secure phonic level to ensure a reading fluency level. This automaticity allows the child to then focus on what they are reading and their understanding of what they have read. These books are read in school three times before they are shared at home with parents and carers.

Any pupil who needs additional practice has daily keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up sessions match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures and resources, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every pupil secures their learning.

We timetable daily phonics lessons for pupils in Year 2 who are not fully fluent in reading, have gaps in their phonic knowledge or have not passed the Phonics Screening Check (taken at the end of Year 1). These pupils urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these. If any pupil in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.

Book Spine

We want to promote quality literature in all classrooms. At Thorpepark we have a book spine per year group to ensure children have access to a range of authors, poets and playwriters.

Thorpepark is also a member of the school library service which gives the school access to an array of resources such as, class texts, resource boxes, topic boxes, story sacks and book club in a bag. This subscription also enables the school to have access to author visits, Big Malarkey Festival and staff training.

Parental engagement

Thorpepark promotes reading at home and encourages children to read as often as possible. Each child has their own reading record where reading is tracked and communicated back to the teacher. Parents are encouraged to join their child in ‘stay and play’ sessions focusing on reading, phonics and mark making.

To promote reading at home in EYFS and KS1 we have launched ‘Bedtime Reading’. Every child can loan a book and a cuddly reading buddy to read at bedtime.

Key stage 2

What does reading look like in Key Stage 2?

Reading in Key stage 2 builds on the skills acquired from Key stage 1. Children will have the opportunity to read for different purposes to support their learning across the curriculum. Through independent, guided and whole class reading the children will have the opportunity to read a wide range of genres.

Guided Readers

In guiding reading, children will explore texts by using different types of questions. Looking questions allow children to support an answer by using the text. Inference questions ask the child to look for clues in the text. Thinking questions are used for children to use their own experiences to answer questions.

Reading for pleasure and widely and often

The school promotes reading in lots of different ways.

In Key Stage 2, we have a reading club called ‘Reading legend’ in which children can loan books and read authors that they might not always choose. This club runs twice a week.

The school has a reading challenge for all KS2 children in which they need to read a range of selected books and genres to achieve their bronze, silver and gold award.

The school has 101 books that are planned in the curriculum and are available for the children to read. These books have been carefully selected to provide a rich literature diet.

The school works in partnership with the local library ‘Greenwood’ and every child from year 1 to year 6 will visit the library during the year. Every child is issued with a library card which they can use outside of school.

Reading is celebrated weekly for Key Stage 1 and 2 and children can earn a golden coin for the Reading vending machine.