Policy: Phonics and Early Reading Policy 2022
Subject Ambassador: Mrs. S. Howes-Jones
Link Academy Councillor: Mrs. K. Norman
Statements of Intent 2021 – 2022:
Our Vision:
A place where our children, adults and community can grow and thrive rooted in
Kindness, Fellowship and Confidence.
Reading – At Stanhope Barrington C of E Primary, we want children to foster a love of reading from an early age by exposing them to a rich breadth of texts across all curriculum areas. Reading opens up a new world for children and allows them to explore different places, characters and cultures. We embed a culture of reading for pleasure, through the rigorous teaching of phonics (Little Wandle) in the early part of their journey, developing confidence and fluency, to give them the skills to not only decode words but to understand the deeper meaning of texts. Focused interventions are implemented to ensure all children can read with fluency, confidence and enjoyment. Reading volunteers are used to support our 1:1 reading across the school and are supported by our Subject Ambassador to deliver our high standards in reading. The use of the Domain Reading Dogs are used thought out Key Stage 1 and 2, to support the children’s understanding of the comprehension aspects linked to reading. The children are also supported in whole class guided reading sessions, where they can spend time unpicking texts and put their comprehension skills into practice.
At Stanhope Barrington C of E Primary, all children are exposed to a multifaceted approach to learning. Carefully chosen, engaging texts are used to stimulate children to be creative in lessons, across all subject areas, making their ideas and thoughts come to life. The use of language and ambitious vocabulary is key to providing the children with confidence to use their skills during their school careers and beyond. Our children are offered a diverse range of quality texts that reflect the wider world, for example. We also utilise our local authors to inspire and work with our children to develop their creativity and imaginations. Set story times across all key stages enable the children to spend time to both enjoy and learn from books.
Writing – At Stanhope Barrington C of E Primary, children are taught in line with the National Curriculum, focusing on the key skills and knowledge needed to develop their writing ability. A range of genres and approaches are used to expose the children to the world of writing, to become confident and expressive writers themselves. Texts are carefully selected to both challenge and develop the children’s understanding of the world. This journey begins instantly in Opal, with our Nursery children and is built on throughout the Learning Zones to ensure the children have access to quality, well-chosen texts, appropriate to their age and ability during their time at Stanhope C of E Primary. Children are supported to use checklists in their writing and in KS2 can independently take ownership of the quality of their work, knowing what is needed to move onto the next stage of their learning.
Children explore and understand new and ambitious vocabulary, across all subject areas, and are encourage to use it independently within their writing. Both boys and girls are engaged and motivated through a wide range of thought provoking and an open-ended plethora of materials, carefully chosen to set their imaginations alive.
Gross and fine motor skills are developed and mastered in the lower end of school. A rigorous handwriting scheme allows the children to develop a clear understanding of cursive letters that develop into a clear and well-formed join. Children are encouraged from an early age to take pride in their work and this is carried on throughout their school career.
Opal Learning Zone
The EYFS Production Team performs The Princess and the Pea! – We continue to promote Traditional Tales across our Foundation Stage One curriculum. This half-term the children have been learning about the Princess and the Pea. To engage the children a role-play area has been set up to allow them to retell the story with their peers, this opportunity has allowed children to improve on their communication and language skills with their expertise knowledge of the story. Today the children were treated to a pantomime. The EYFS staff delivered the performance that would leave Andrew Lloyd Webber panicking for his job.
Do you know any rhymes? – During the February half-term holidays, the children were challenged to learn a rhyme. One of our children was so confident at saying her rhyme she insisted on performing it for her peers! Well done on showing great independence and resilience to perform your rhyme.
“Oh, my Grandmother, what big teeth you have!” – This half-term we have been concentrating on the traditional tale, Little Red Riding Hood. The children have thoroughly enjoyed carrying out activities such as sequencing and retelling the story. However, our role play area has provided the most entertainment. The wonderful Mrs. McArdle has created Grandmother’s bedroom allowing the children to show off their creative flare as they recreate the story.
Amethyst Learning Zone
How can you make a sandwich? – This week we have been writing and following instructions on how to make a sandwich. The children were given the choice of either chocolate or jam and then created a set of instructions that we used to make the sandwich. The children showed fantastic independence using the equipment and we all enjoyed our sandwiches together.
Retelling a story – Little Red Riding Hood has been our traditional tale this half-term and the children have been enthralled in the story. The children now have a concrete understanding of the story due to the continuous provision that allows the children to recreate and unpick the tale. This week in the Amethyst Learning Zone we have been pretending to be teachers as we retell the story to our peers adding in expression and actions where applicable.
Here is Frankie explaining the story to a small group of pupils.
Sapphire Learning Zone
What ways can we explore a range of texts? – We have all being reading a range different story types and sharing them with others so we can keep moving up the honeycomb challenges in our library.
Where The Wild Things Are – This half term, we explored the book ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak. We worked in groups to analyse the character, the setting and then we go to write our very own story based on the book. In our story, our bedrooms transformed into a whole new place where our adventure would take place.
Storytelling – We were so lucky to have a visit from a real-life story teller, Gav Cross. The children took part in an interactive workshop where they became the characters and story tellers themselves. We are planning to use some of the skills we have learnt into our stories next half term an during our exploring time.
Ruby Learning Zone
Persuasive Writing – In literacy this term, children in Ruby Learning zone have learned about persuasive writing techniques, culminating in them creating their own adverts. They have also learned about poetic language devices such as similes, metaphors, alliteration and rhyme as well as the Anglo-Saxon style of kenning poetry. The children have also been enjoying our new guided reading book ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’.
Emerald Learning Zone
Charles Dickens – We have been learning all about the famous author Charles Dickens. The Emerald children now know so many amazing facts they were able to ‘hot seat’ the author! Please ask your child for some facts about Dickens and you will be amazed at what they know!
Flotsam – At the beginning of this half term we are looking at the picture book ‘Flotsam’. We were given some flotsam from different people and we had to use our inference skills to work out what type of person it belonged to. We came up with lots of ideas from archaeologists to scientists!
Writing Puns – We are preparing for writing a newspaper article about an animation called Spy Fox. The children had great fun today creating puns they could use in their final piece of writing. I think you will agree they’re fin-tastic!
Diamond Learning Zone
Writing Styles – This half term the children have been looking at a range of different writing styles including a set of instructions. The children worked in small groups to identify different writing features from an example text. They were then tasked to produce their own set of instructions to inform Mr Craven of how he can look after children!
The Secret Garden – The children in Diamond began to read The Secret Garden in literacy. They have really enjoyed gaining a good understanding of the characters and using this knowledge to write some fantastic pieces of writing. One of our focuses was to write a formal letter, the children used formal language to get into the character of Colonel McGrew.
Literacy – Diamond – The Secret Garden 2021
Archived Information
You can view our archived literacy information on our website.
