Phonics and Reading Intent, Implementation and Impact statement

Intent

At Lewannick CP School we value reading as a key life skill and aim to have a reading
curriculum that develops children’s knowledge of phonics and other age appropriate
strategies to enable them to become successful readers who develop a life-long love of
reading.

We believe reading is key for academic success and so to ensure we have a holistic
approach to the teaching of reading, we implement the following.

We are very lucky to have a wide range of reading books in our school. All children from
Pre-school to Year 6 choose age appropriate reading books to take home and these are
changed on a daily basis in EYFS and KS1 to when the book is completed in KS2. All
children have the opportunity to regularly visit the school library where they can select
a book to take home and others to use within their classroom. This offers the opportunity
for reading to be applies all aspects of our curriculum.

Children who are not yet ‘free readers’, will work through our school reading scheme –
these are levelled books which phonetically decodable and match children’s knowledge of
phonics as well as being appropriately challenging. We expect family at home to read
these books with their child daily and make comments in their child’s reading record.
By the time children leave Lewannick the majority are competent readers who can
recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including
poetry, and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of
language and the impact this can have on the reader.

Implementation

At Lewannick, all children within EYFS and KS1 are taught phonics through a synthetic
phonics programme called ‘Read Write Inc’ produced by Ruth Miskin. Read Write Inc is
a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to read and write words.
As part of this, children in EYFS and KS1 have daily phonics sessions where they
participate in speaking, listening and spelling activities that are matched to their
developing needs. The teachers draw upon observations and continuous assessment to
ensure children are stretched and challenged and to identify children who may need
additional support. Children work through the different phases, learning and developing
their phonics sounds and knowledge.

Teachers complete half termly assessments and plot children onto a tracking grid, which
ensures they are being appropriately challenged and supported.

Within KS1 and 2 children take part in regular whole class reading lessons, where children
are exposed to a range of different texts and genres. Reading with pace, fluency, expression and confidence are all important aspects of ensuring our children develop a love of reading and as they progress the teaching of reading unknown words moves from using phonics to syllable chunking. Through the teaching of VIPERS (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing and summarising) the children are able to demonstrate their comprehension of these.

At the end of each term, children complete the Cornerstone reading test papers and the results of these alongside teacher judgements form the term’s summative assessment. Teacher judgements are moderated and quality assured against the National Curriculum outcomes by SLT to ensure judgements are accurate and children are appropriately challenged and supported.

Impact

As we believe that reading is key to all learning, the impact of our reading curriculum
goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter
the wide and varied magical worlds that reading opens up to them. As they develop their
own interest in books, a deep love of literature across a range of genres cultures and
styles is enhanced.

Through the teaching of systematic phonics and reading enquiry, our aim is for children
to become fluent and confident readers who can apply their knowledge and experience
to a range of texts through the Key Stage 2 curriculum.

As a Year 6 reader, transitioning into secondary school, we aspire that children are
fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure and
enjoyment, as well as use their reading skills to unlock learning and all areas of the
curriculum. We firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of
our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.
In addition to this, parents and carers will have a good understanding of how they can
support reading at home, and contribute regularly to home-school records.
There will also be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (e.g.
disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged)