Reading:
Reading is a key tool for life. Teaching children to become excellent readers is a large and exciting part of what we do at Bugle School. Across the school children have access to a wide range of high-quality texts to develop learning in all curriculum areas. Reading good quality fiction to the children is a priority in all year groups. The children at Bugle School use the Accelerated Reader to match their reading fluency with their comprehension. They are encouraged to read at home daily and are listened to in school. This is also tracked and reading bands are given accordingly.
In addition, throughout the school year the importance of reading is enhanced through World Book Day, author and poet visits, Shakespeare Week, Book Fairs and sponsored reading events to further enrich our English curriculum. Additionally, at 1:00pm every day, pupils share a story in their classrooms; adults read a class book aloud to the children to further promote a love for reading in to every school day. Reading for pleasure is a high priority – our library is well stocked and every classroom has its own reading area from which children are encouraged to borrow books to take home.
Phonics
At Bugle School we follow the Read Write Inc (RWI) program of phonics teaching. Each child in reception and Year 1, has a daily, minimum 20 minute phonics lesson, followed by a 20 minute reading session following the teaching sequence. In Yr2, children access a balance of both phonic and spelling punctuation and grammar (SPAG) lessons based on their individual needs and attainment. Reception and KS1 children are either taught as a whole class or sometimes put into small groups, based on regular assessments so that children’s learning needs are accurately matched to the correct provision. Small phonic sessions or interventions are delivered by teaching assistants and overseen by the class teacher, to provide complimentary teaching.
Sessions are lively, fast-paced and fun. In a session, children are taught either phonemes/digraphs/trigraphs, high frequency and/or tricky words and these are consolidated through reading and writing. There are lots of opportunities to speak and listen, as well as to read and write the sounds.
At the end of Yr 1 children have to take the national Phonics Test which tests children’s phonic knowledge. Here, they are required to read real and nonsense words, applying the skills they have learnt. Ideally children will have completed and consolidated Phase 5 during Yr 1 and Phase 6 during Yr 2, so that they can focus more on higher-level comprehension using increasingly challenging texts. Any child that does not complete the phonics programme will continue learning phonics throughout Yr 3/4 during interventions.
