Teaching Reading - Reading Practice Sessions

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. These:

• are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids
• are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

• decoding
• prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
• comprehension: teaching children to understand the text. 

In Reception these sessions start in Autumn 1 Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books. 
In KS2 we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books. 

                                                                                   Home Reading

Children take home a decodable reading book that contains learnt GPCs and tricky words. This allows children to have additional practice at home and provides opportunity for reading success to be shared with their family. 
Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children. Children choose these reading for pleasure books from either their class library or the school library.
 We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

                                                                          Additional Reading Support 

Children in Reception and KS1, who are receiving additional phonics keep-up sessions, read their home reading book to an adult at least three times a week.