Early Reading

At Heart of the Forest School we believe successful approaches to the teaching of early reading will enable children to read as accurately and fluently as possible, with both understanding and enjoyment. Learners at the early stages of reading gain the phonics knowledge and language comprehension necessary to read, and the skills to communicate, gives them the foundations for future learning. By deploying appropriate reading strategies, pupils are provided with a progressive and varied learning experience that aims to engage pupils in learning whilst enriching reading skills. Creating a positive reading culture inspires our young people to develop a love of reading that progresses into an enriching life skill.

Our reading curriculum and practice aims to develop a culture of reading by experiencing books and all forms of written material that include a wealth of new vocabulary and texts, which provide opportunities to develop comprehension, spoken language, enable the teaching of grammar as appropriate and build on cross curricular links across the curriculum. We recognise that reading is closely interconnected with other aspects of learning in communication and literacy, such as speaking and listening, comprehension and writing.

Our delivery of reading reflects the unique learning needs of our pupils, recognising that over-learning and multi-sensory tasks are essential. The Reading Skills Progression Map demonstrates how individual pupils can be working systematically on several areas of reading at any one time which enables our pupil’s to access reading at a level appropriate to stage of development.

Heart of the Forest aims to:

Inspire pupils to develop a love of reading, and be able to understand more about the world in which they live, through the knowledge they gain from texts.
Provide a range of reading strategies that support the unique learning needs of our pupils.
Enable pupils to read as accurately and fluently as possible, with both understanding and enjoyment.
Empower pupils to develop a respect for and love of books for pleasure.
Encourage pupils to respond sensitively and critically to the texts they read/have read to them.

Implementation

As part of a reading and language rich environment, Heart of the Forest provides a variety of reading opportunities including:

Daily phonics input (4 sessions per week)
Guided and shared reading
Individual reading
Hearing stories and texts read aloud on a regular basis
Cross curricular reading opportunities
Library access
Inviting reading areas in each classroom
Reading interventions including the use of a therapy dog

Phonics

Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) is a DfE validated systematic synthetic phonics program used to develop early reading skills, phonics and sound work. It sets out a detailed and systematic program for teaching phonic skills. At Heart of the Forest phonics sessions take place during four mornings each week for a duration of 25 minutes in streamed ability groups across both phases.

Phase One begins with the Early Years pupils and is recognised as being important for all skills of Listening and Communication, not purely for pre-reading. The delivery of the seven aspects of Phase One is adapted to suit the needs of the pupils, and continues into later Key Stages as appropriate.
Phase Two overlaps with Phase One, particularly the skill of Oral Blending. This aspect is an important tool in helping the pupil in progressing from the recognition of letter sounds to being able to blend them to make words. A few ‘tricky’ (i.e. non-decodable) words are included to be learned as ‘whole words’. At this phase, there is no requirement for writing as spelling can be practiced with magnetic letters and letter cards, for example.
Phase Three introduces more complex sounds, more ‘tricky ‘ words and pupils are required to learn the letter names.
Subsequent phases further build on phonics knowledge and allow for extended guided reading opportunities, which further focus on developing reading proficiency and independence.

For learners in KS5 (FE) phonics is delivered with greater functionality where learners are able to apply and further develop their awareness of letter sounds in a more purposeful and meaningful way. This includes exploring texts used to generate a love of reading and build vocabulary through the association of prior knowledge and curricular links.

Reading Scheme
At Heart of the Forest We follow the Oxford Owl reading scheme, partnered with ELS scheme for Phonics Phases Two through to Five that follows a highly structured, decodable phonic sequence to encourage reading success and building of confidence. To ensure that pupils have a book linked to their phonics level, the phonic progression within each unit corresponds with each phase in the ELS program and post phonics, we have Phase 7 onwards to support comprehension and inference. Pupils in KS3 and above have access to the Rapid Reading Plus scheme which incorporates age-appropriate content, with real-life topics, to further inspire a love of reading.

Reading for pleasure
Reading for pleasure opens up new worlds for children. It allows pupils the opportunity to use their imagination to explore new ideas, visit new places and meet new characters. Interestingly, reading for pleasure also improves children’s well-being and empathy. Our aim is to develop and embed a strong, sustainable reading culture within the school community. Confident and competent readers will foster a love of reading through a rich and varied experience of texts, in which they are empowered to exercise freedoms of choice and independence. It underpins all learning and secures a good trajectory for personal development, understanding the world in which they live. It helps learners to understand their own identity, and gives them an insight into the world and the views of others.

To further promote reading, all classes partake in reading for pleasure as a scheduled part of the class timetable for 10 minutes at the end of each school day. This differentiated for learners across learning phases and pathways to allow for age appropriate reading materials to be shared and enjoyed.

Each class has access to a shared reading area within the classroom where pupils have free access to high quality texts. Additionally, the whole school has access to a wide range of texts in different formats and genres within two school library’s. Pupils in each phase have access to an array of engaging texts, audio books, digital resources and sensory story bags within purposeful, age appropriate library environments.

Literacy
We believe pupils deserve a rich curriculum, which encourages extensive reading of books and other kinds of texts. The whole school overview of coverage for reading plans for the use of high quality texts. We carefully select texts every half term for each pathway and key stage to promote a love of reading, incorporated as part of timetabled lessons. Across each year and key stage, pupils have the opportunity to experience and recall a rich heritage of texts (fiction and nonfiction) including well-known timeless novels. We implement the delivery of literature through an engaging teaching framework that enables learners to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally, before reading, analysing and then writing their own version. Through this process, we embed skills to support retrieval and inference.

Assessment

Phase 1 to 5 Phonics ELS online assessment tool (phonics tracker) is used to carry out half termly assessments conducted by the class teachers. Pupils are then re-grouped according to progress made or support required, determining phonics phase level accessed. This is reviewed and monitored termly by the reading subject lead.

Pupils are assessed in reading six times a year, half-termly. WSP Steps flight paths are used to identify starting points for pupils and correlate with personalised curriculum plans (PCP). Learning objectives relate to individual personalised curriculum plans, which are clearly displayed in classrooms. Comments relating to the learning and progress that takes place during lessons or sequences of lessons are written against the objectives. Once the objective on the personalised curriculum plan is achieved, it is highlighted green in line with the school’s marking policy.

Target setting meetings encourage discussion between teachers and senior leaders regarding the progress of pupils where appropriately challenging targets can be set and monitored identifying reading or phonics interventions to support catch up.

For pupils in KS4 and KS5 they will work towards achieving recognised qualifications in functional English at Entry Levels 1, 2, 3 and Levels 1 & 2. Lessons are systematic and designed to build on knowledge over the weeks with focuses on Reading, Writing and Spoken Language in line with the functional skills examinations.

Working with parents and carers

During the academic year parents and carers are invited to phonics workshops during which they can gain an insight into the ELS phonics program used in school including information relating to the school-reading scheme. Working in partnership with parents to encourage reading at home further supports pupils to have the greatest opportunity to achieve reading fluency through repetition of decoding words. In addition, pupils also have reading logs, which are used to communicate books, read and track progress between home and school.

With Support from school Parents and Carers can: