Emscote Infant School
and
All Saints' C of E Junior School
Reading
Reading at Emscote Infant School
Children learn to read in a variety of ways including:
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Talking about books – wordless and word books.
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Sight vocabulary.
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Phonics – using the Floppy’s Phonics Systematic Synthetic Phonics Programme. A scheme validated by the government.
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Scheme books which support the phonics and build a knowledge of characters (see separate Reading Book Band Information).
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Developing a love of real books across different genres.
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Being read to by others who can show a passion for books and reading.
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Events – including Book Days, a Summer Reading Challenge, a focused Reading Month, visiting authors and sharing books with peers across the federation.
At Emscote children are listened to at least once with an adult in school and additional reads with volunteer readers wherever possible. This includes talk around the text to develop vocabulary. The expectation is that they will read at least 4 times a week at home with an adult. Alongside this, there are many reading activities set up where children can practise and develop their skills or simply develop a love of books including library time and shared reading. Much of the creative curriculum that takes place in school is linked with reading good quality texts covering fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Reading in Early Years
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Children start by learning the names of the characters in the main Reading Scheme - Oxford Reading Tree.
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They tell stories using the character names with Wordless books. There is a big focus on developing their vocabulary and introducing new words to the children to aid them with their story telling.
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Once the characters are known, they learn some ‘first words’ on a Word Wall.
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As soon as they can read the ‘first words’, they move on to ‘First ‘Word Books’ where they have the opportunity to practice these new sight words.
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Children then take words home to learn to read and write.
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Phonics starts as straight away and as soon as all children are in school. They learn 2 sounds a week using a structured programme called Floppy’s Phonics.
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The choice of school reading books that the children take home are closely linked to their Phonics knowledge.
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Storytime at the end of the day allows the children to sit, listen to and enjoy quality texts.
Reading in Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2)
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Children read in school with an adult at least once a week (more where possible).
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Children are required to read their book twice at least twice. The second read is to increase fluency and comprehension of the text.
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Reading diaries must be filled in at school and at home with comments kept as a record of the children’s reading. Books will be changed as often as is necessary.
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Alongside individual reading, there is an allocated time for Guided/Shared Reading. These sessions include work on the different reading domains. The activities concentrate on developing vocabulary, prediction and retrieval, sequencing, writing linked to the text and comprehension.
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Children continue to take part in Floppy’s Phonics lessons in Year 1 and 2 learning at least 2 sounds a week in a structured programme.
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The choice of school reading books that the children take home are closely linked to their current Phonics knowledge.
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Children will use a range of texts each term to support the topic which will includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
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The School Library in Apple Class is free for all to use after school. Children are encouraged to visit the library to choose their own books to take home.
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Children are introduced to different authors through ‘Author of the Month’ displays in the classrooms. Authors and their work are regularly discussed in class and children are encouraged to talk about their observations and share their opinions about texts.
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Children can clearly see that books are highly valued by all in school. This is shown by the way they are cared for, displayed, spoken about and shared.
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There is a Storytime every day for children to sit and listen to a book read by an adult.
Reading for Pleasure Class Diaries
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A lifelong Reading for Pleasure is something we want to encourage all children to develop.
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Children across the school are encouraged to share their favourite books within their own classes through a weekly Reading for Pleasure diary. Children write about why they enjoy their book and bring it along to read aloud to the rest of the class.
Year 1 Phonics Screening - Homework Resources
These sheets can be used at home to check your child's understanding of phonics in preparation for the Year 1 checks during June. There are real words and alien (made-up) words using phonemes they will be learning in school. Encourage your child to say the sounds they hear to read the words out loud.
