Intent

At St Benedict’s, we believe that the teaching of reading is integral to a child’s
understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows
our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and
develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves. Our reading
curriculum strives to foster a lifelong love of reading.

This curriculum is delivered through synthetic systematic phonics, guided reading,
home reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent
reading and being exposed to quality texts. All of these are essential components as
they offer the range of opportunities needed to develop fluent, enthusiastic and
critical readers.

It is important that children are motivated to read at home regularly; whether that is
a phonetically decodable book or a reading for pleasure book. We recognise that
when children’s reading opportunities increase, so does their fluency and stamina, in
turn increasing their enjoyment of reading.

Therefore, the link between children’s motivation to read and reading for pleasure is
reciprocal. Furthermore, we know that reading for pleasure is beneficial not only for
reading outcomes, but for wider learning enjoyment and mental wellbeing. Thus, we
work to foster a love of independent reading and build communities of engaged
readers. We understand the significance of parents and carers in supporting their
children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills so we endeavour to
build a home-school partnership, which enables parents and carers to have the
confidence to support their children with reading at home.

We intend that children leave St Benedict’s as competent readers, who can
recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a wide range of high quality texts across the genres, participate in discussions about books and have an
established love of reading for life.

 

Implementation

We use the DfE validated phonics scheme ‘Monster Phonics’. Monster Phonics is a
highly engaging, structured, synthetic phonics programme. It facilitates learning by
allowing children to learn new graphemes by using monsters to group graphemes for
recall and to provide an easy and fun memory cue for children. It also uses colour coding to highlight the grapheme when teaching a new grapheme. Once taught and
secure, the colour is removed.

Monster Phonics matches the Reception EYFS framework and KS1 Spelling
Curriculum. It progresses from simple to more complex phonic knowledge and skills,
and ensures that prior knowledge is built upon. The main principles of systematic
synthetic phonics teaching are followed, allowing children to become confident and
successful readers, spellers and writers from a very early stage in their school life.
Alongside the daily phonics sessions, we also use Monster Phonics’ phonetically
decodable reading books to support word reading and consolidate phonic skills
taught in the lessons.

These books form the basis of weekly guided reading sessions
in EYFS and KS1 and then are sent home to consolidate skills further with the
support of parents at home. To promote parental engagement in home reading
parents have the opportunity to attend a Monster Phonics parents meeting to
explain the approach fully, this allows the approach to be consistent in school and at
home.

In KS2, guided reading is undertaken as a whole class using the ‘CUSP’
scheme. The children explore a range of high quality texts working on developing
decoding, inference and retrieval skills. Children develop these skills through whole
class collaborative discussion of the texts and then build on their discussions further
by completing sequential activities to support learning and development.
We use the CUSP scheme to form the basis of our English lessons. Children have
the opportunity to develop reading skills through exposure to high quality models of
a variety of text types. Children are also exposed to different books during a range of
engaging topics in the wider curriculum.

We are currently developing reading spines for each class highlighting the books that
will be covered during the year. This includes fiction, non-fiction, poetry and
diversity texts to ensure children are exposed to a variety of different books during
the year.

EYFS has ‘Story Time’ daily and in KS1/2 children listen to a class read regularly. The
aim of this is to further expose children to a range of texts, promote the love of
reading and to build the vocabulary that the children are exposed to.
Our school library allows children to immerse themselves in the wonderful world of
books. They are stocked with an attractive range of fiction and non-fiction to support
every ability and reading choice and encompass the latest reading trends and classic
texts that should be part of every child’s primary school experience- building the
children’s cultural capital.

In addition, we celebrate reading together throughout the year by taking part in
both school based, local and national reading initiatives including World Book Day,
Monster Phonics day and Usborne sponsored read competitions.

 

Impact

Children’s progress in phonics is continually reviewed through planned for phonics
assessments and evidence from their reading and writing. Through these, teachers
identify any areas that need to be addressed which then informs support provided.
Daily phonics intervention also allows children who are not meeting the learning
objectives to be identified quickly and supported effectively.

In June, the national Phonics Screening Check is undertaken to confirm that the
children have learnt to decode to an age appropriate standard and determines what
level of provision they will require in the following year.

Through exposure to a range of texts within guided reading, English lessons and the
wider curriculum children will leave St Benedict’s as 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. They can also
read books to enhance their knowledge and understanding of all subjects on the
curriculum, and communicate their research to a wider audience.