Reading

At St Wilfrid’s we are dedicated to encouraging all children to be passionate about Reading. We are determined to support all children in becoming highly competent readers (reading with fluency, automaticity and understanding) by the end of their time with us. It is our intention to immerse pupils in quality texts in order to instil a love of Reading.

During their time at St Wilfrid’s, all children will be exposed to a high-quality systematic English education, rich in vocabulary. This will teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas, thoughts and feelings with others and understand what others are trying to communicate to them. 

Early Reading and Phonics

At St Wilfrid's we use the Twinkl Phonics Scheme from Nursery to Year 2. This scheme is validated by the DfE. The programme ensures, through daily practice, that children have a secure grasp of the 4 cornerstones of phonics needed to read and write fluently:  rapid recall of GPCs, rapid recall of tricky/common exception words, efficient blending skills and efficient segmenting skills.  The structure of every phonics lesson follows a five-part pattern to ensure that the four cornerstones of phonics are covered: revisit and review, teach, practice, apply, assess.   

Throughout Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, reading books are closely linked to children's developing phonic knowledge. Both in school and at home, children read Rhino Readers which are linked to the Twinkl Phonics progression. Reading sessions take place in small groups, appropriate to a child's stage of development.

Children read books from the level within which they are secure to enable them to achieve success and read with a good level of fluency and automaticity. The books used are clearly structured to enable pupils to revisit, recall and consolidate knowledge prior to reading through the use of highlighted common exception/tricky words, sound mats showing the sounds covered in the book and sound buttons to support blending and segmenting of key focus words for that book. Comprehension questions are provided with all the books, covering the variety of reading domains, to support staff and parents in ensuring that children have understood what they have read and are  ‘reading to learn’ as well as ‘learning to read’.   

Comprehension