Phonics at Tewin Cowper School

From September 2022, we have been using the Twinkl Phonics programme. We believe this programme will enable all children to progress and be successful in learning Phonics and develop fluent and confident readers and spellers. 

Please see below, the slides from the presentation evening delivered at the beginning of Autumn term plus some useful resources for each level of phonics. There are also some videos of the sounds and actions being demonstrated.

Reading at Tewin Cowper

Intent

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Dr. Suess

Reading is the foremost important skill any person can learn, if you can read, you can learn anything. At Tewin Cowper we don’t want to just teach reading, we intend to instill a life-long love of reading. Reading is the heart of our curriculum and we intend to ensure all children will learn to read with fluency, confidence and enjoyment. All children will be exposed to many exciting and varied literary texts. These will be different genres and will expose children to ambitious vocabulary to widen their knowledge and experience of the world.

Implementation

In early reading we teach systematic synthetic phonics using the Twinkl programme. This aims to provide children with a clear progression of skills and knowledge to enable them to decode words effectively with automaticity and facilitate a clear comprehension of the texts they are reading. Children may be encouraged to attend other classes’ phonics lessons to support them to learn at the correct level for them and accelerate progress. Children will also have a wide range of texts read to them for entertainment and in guided reading sessions to teach the necessary skills for lasting reading fluency and future learning. Children will be read with regularly and continuous assessments completed to enable early identification of any children that are falling behind. These children will be supported and offered reading or phonics interventions delivered by trained members of staff to ensure that progress is achieved and all children are able to succeed. When required this may also involve making referrals for additional support from our SPLD base.

As children move through the school, we will continue to use phonics and regular guided reading sessions taught to the whole class to build on reading fluency and comprehension. We will teach and support children with learning the skills of discussion, widening vocabulary, eliciting a love of words and giving children a well-rounded understanding of the world around them.

Our new library area which has recently been refurbished will provide further opportunities to develop children’s independence with reading by having the choice and freedom to enjoy stories, poetry and information in their own way and own time, Our library will help to immerse children in the culture of reading for pleasure and provide life-long readers who will go on to succeed in whatever they choose to do and whatever places they go.

Reading Fluency

At Tewin Cowper we are passionate about teaching our children to be fluent readers.

What is fluency?

Reading fluency is the ability to read accurately (decode), with expression (prosody) and quickly (automatically) to enable children to bridge the gap between word recognition and comprehension.

How we teach reading at Tewin Cowper:

During individual, class and guided reading we model and teach children the skills to read fluently.

Repeated reading: We practice re-reading texts several times to increase fluency and automaticity of reading.

Choral reading: We read aloud as a group, a pair or as a class to learn and practice prosody.

Echo reading: Children copy modelled expert reading to learn and practice prosody

Finger tracking: We track along with our expert reader with our finger as they read.

Reader’s theatre: We learn a text so that we can perform reading it.

Fluent readers will be confident readers, understand the texts they read at a high level and be able to enjoy everything that reading has to offer them.

Below is the Powerpoint delivered by staff during the parent and child reading session in May.