Reading at The Priory CE VA Primary School
The ability to read is the key to educational achievement. Without a basic foundation in literacy, children cannot gain access to a rich and diverse curriculum. Poor literacy limits opportunities not only at school, but throughout life, both economically and in terms of a wider enjoyment and appreciation of the written word.
‘Reading’ is a term that is often used as if was self-evident. But a number of different processes can be understood to make up ‘reading’. These include:
• decoding: the ability to translate letters on a page into known sounds that correspond to a word;
• comprehension: once a word has been sounded out, understanding the meaning of that word;
• narrative: Knowing that a story has innate progression and coherence: a beginning, middle and end;
• familiarity with books and other printed material: a culture of wanting to read and enjoying it.
Following the NLS the searchlights model was widely adopted using a range of strategies including:
Phonics, Word recognition and graphic knowledge, Knowledge of context and Grammatical Knowledge.
In recent years the use of ‘phonics’ has increased in popularity as a method of teaching reading. Put simply, phonics programmes emphasise the importance of establishing a secure correspondence between written letters and the sounds of language in the learner’s mind. Phonics programmes emphasise teaching letters of the alphabet as sounds (for example, ‘kicking k’ rather than the letter name ‘kay’), later moving on to more complex digraphs and, finally, the irregular spellings of the English language, which do not follow phonic rules. As with other teaching methods, there are a number of variations in the way in which phonics can be taught. The two main variants are ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ phonics. Analytic phonics does not necessarily break down words into their smallest units or phonemes. The ‘onset-rime’ method, for example, divides words into openings (onset) and endings (rime). So ‘street’ is broken down into ‘str-eet’. In contrast synthetic phonics involves segmenting words into the smallest unit of sound, then teaching children to blend these sounds together to form words. So the word ‘street’ is broken down into five components: ‘s-t-r-ee-t’. This is sometimes referred to as ‘all-through-the-word’ teaching. Many argue that this approach leads to much greater improvements in reading standards than purely the searchlights model put forward by the NLS. However it is also true that children learn differently and whilst we recognise the importance of teaching ‘synthetic phonics’ as key at the Priory School, it is not the sole method and the searchlights model still applies alongside strong phonic teaching.
Children in the infant years are taught ‘synthetic’ phonics alongside other searchlights and this continues into the junior phase if and when required. Once a child has mastered phonics and reads with fluency more emphasis is placed on comprehension, authorial intent, use of language, characterisation, inference and deduction and higher order reading skills.
Children in the infants are taught using ‘Letters and Sounds,’ phonic games and the ‘Dandelion Readers’ phonetically based reading scheme. Teachers are trained and continue to be trained in the use of synthetic phonics.
In the juniors the emphasis moves towards independent reading and developing comprehension skills. Rigby Navigator is one resource used to support group guided reading from Year 3 onwards.
If you have any further questions regarding synthetic phonics for you to support your child at home, please talk to your teacher or the Writing Leader (Mr Swain) who can help you with this.