Reading and Phonics at Christ Church
Learning to read is one of the most important things your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.
We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we work hard to make sure children develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.
Phonics at Christ Church
We start by teaching phonics in Reception using the Letters and Sounds as a framework. Children learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. This is used alongside other resources such as Phonics Play and Phonics Bug which is 100% match for the new DfE criteria for quality synthetic phonics resources.
The children also practise reading (and spelling) ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.
Reading at Christ Church
Once children can blend sounds together to read words, they practise reading books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start to believe they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.
Teachers regularly read to the children, too, so the children get to know and love all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. This helps to extend children’s vocabulary and comprehension, as well as supporting their writing. Throughout school reading skills are also taught using a wide range of materials. Children develop reading skills through daily guided reading, shared reading and individual reading sessions.
Up until the end of Year 2, your child will work with children who are at the same reading level. This is so that the teaching can be focussed on their needs. Some older children will continue to access phonics groups using resources from the Rapid Reading Programme if they need further consolidation and development of reading skills. We check children’s reading skills regularly so we that we can ensure they are in the right group. Children will move to a different group if they are making faster progress or may have one-to-one support if we think they need some extra help.
Reading Curriculum
Click here for our whole-school reading overview
Reading Progression of Skills and Knowledge
Click here for our Progression of Skills and Knowledge in Reading Document
Reading Resources
Some of the resources we use in our school to develop reading skills along with a lifelong love of reading:
- Rigby Navigator
- Bug Club
- Oxford Reading Tree
- A range of quality text for our learners to enjoy alongside the books selected by their classroom adults.
- Phonics Bug
- Phonics Play
- Letters and Sounds
- Rapid Reading Programme
In the summer term, the government asks us to do a phonics check of all the Year 1 children. We will let you know how well your child has done.
Please continue to the end to see our revised Reading Curriculum.
How long will it take to learn to read well?
Every child is different and children will learn to read at different speeds. By the end of Year 2, most children will be able to read aloud books that are at the right level for his or her age. In Year 3 and beyond, we concentrate more on helping children to understand what they are reading, although this work begins very early on.
What can Parents/Carers do to help?
Within the first two weeks of your child starting Reception, you will be invited to a meeting so that we can explain how we teach reading and show you the resources we use. During the meeting, there are lots of suggestions on how you can help your child to read. Your support really does get your child off to a flying start and encourages them to make great progress!
You can help your child to sound out the letters in words and then to ‘blend’ the sounds together to make a whole word. Try not to refer to the letters by their names. Help your child to focus on the sounds. You can hear how to say the sounds correctly by searching on YouTube for ‘Read Write Inc. Phonemes Pronunciation Guide’
Sometimes your child might bring home a picture book that they know well. Please don’t say, ‘This is too easy.’ Instead, encourage your child to tell you the story out loud; ask them questions about things that happen or what they think about some of the characters in the story.
Make reading fun! Remember to keep reading to your child. They will come across far more adventurous words than they will in their early reading books. You will be helping them to grow a vast vocabulary and understand the meaning of different stories etc. It will also encourage them to love books and want to read more!
To access a wide variety of free e-Books, click on www.oxfordowl.co.uk.
Go to the Reading Section then follow the link to e-Books and choose a book.
Kindly click on the image for additional resources to help you support your child.
You will need your child's personal login details given by the class teacher
Does it Matter if you child misses a lesson or two?
It matters a lot if your child misses school. The way we teach children to read is very well organised, so even one missed lesson means that your child has not learnt something that they need to know to be a good reader.
What if my child finds it difficult to read?
We want every child to learn to read, however long it takes us to teach them. We will find out very quickly if your child is finding reading difficult. First, we move children to a different group, so that we can make sure that they have learnt what they need to know. If they still struggle, we may give them extra 1:1 support. If we have any concerns about your child’s reading, we will talk to you about this.
Remember, all children are individual so some children take a little longer to learn to put sounds together to read a word, e.g. c-a-t to make the word ‘cat’.
Recommended Reading Lists
These ‘recommended reading lists’ contain 40 age-appropriate books for children in each year group. At St. Luke’s, we understand that reading needs to be engaging for both children and parents and hence have carefully provided a variety books that will hopefully capture your children's imagination. The lists contain age-related colour bands and a description of the each book so that the children are able to filter between their old time favourite and any new peaking interests that may fall between their book-band level or personal pursuit.
- 40 books for Reception.pdf
- 40 Books for Year 1.pdf
- 40 books for Year 2.pdf
- 40 books for Year 3.pdf
- 40 books for Year 4.pdf
- 40 books for Year 5.pdf
- 40 books for Year 6.pdf
Letters_and_Sounds_-_DFES-00281-2007.pdf
google classroom library pdf.pdf