St Mary's Reading at St Mary's
At St Mary’s, we know that learning to read is one of the most important things a child will do in his or her life. It is fundamental to all other learning.
Reading is a vital skill which will support children’s learning across the whole curriculum and beyond. As a school, we will ensure that our children are taught to read with fluency, accuracy and understanding, through a variety of discrete and cross-curricular learning opportunities. Reading for pleasure is also hugely important for children – it builds resilience, happiness, empathy and communication skills, contributing to improved life chances.
Phonics
At St Mary's, we believe that the systematic approach to the teaching of phonics offers the vast majority of young children the best and most direct route to becoming skilled readers. We use the Read Write Inc. scheme for teaching reading. You can find a useful parent guide to Read Write Inc via this link.
From the start of Reception, children take part in a daily phonics lesson which follows the progression for Read, Write Inc. Phonics is taught for approximately 25 minutes per day. This involves practising the sounds and learning to blend them together to make words.
Sounds Videos
The videos below show how we say some of the sounds and how we blend them to make words.
Developing Reading Fluency
Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 have decodable reading books. This means that they should be able to read all of the words in them because they have learnt the sounds in their phonics sessions.