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Mellor Community Primary School

Subject Information: English

Phonics Documents

Children in the EYFS, Year 1 and 2, take part in daily phonics sessions following a Systematic Synthetic Phonics Programme by ALS (Ann Louise Smalberger Letters and Sounds).  Children start Phase 2 phonics as soon as they enter Reception so that they acquire the key skills necessary to read and spell and are well prepared for transition to Year 1. Staff have been fully trained to ensure a consistent and structured approach is used across all phases. Additional Phonics sessions are delivered across the school as part of the interventions we offer at Mellor.

Reading Documents

Reading is prioritised at Mellor because we recognise it is the key to children unlocking the wider curriculum.  Staff actively foster and promote a love for reading and regularly share and recommend texts to children.

Children in all year groups take part in guided and shared reading sessions throughout the week.

In the EYFS, guided reading sessions use decodable books that match the phonics programme and phonemes being taught. The books allow children the opportunity to practice their phonics knowledge and apply this to the books they are reading. Children in the EYFS also take part in whole class shared reading sessions using big books. They have the opportunity to read the book alongside the class teacher. The children discuss the books, make predictions, develop their language comprehension skills and vocabulary and hunt for key high frequency words they are learning.

In KS1, we use shared reading to focus on developing the four key skills of comprehension; predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising. At the start of each lesson, the teacher models the key reading skills in a shared reading session and the pupils are given the chance to apply these. Following on from shared reading, guided reading sessions that take place during the week will focus on embedding the skills taught. Children still learning phonics in KS1 will use a decodable text for their guided reading session matched to the phonemes being taught.

In KS2 we follow the Reciprocal Reading approach to continue to develop the four key skills of comprehension; predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising building on from the skills and strategies children are taught in KS1. Short stories or extracts from a variety of texts are utilised and often link to other curriculum areas and topics children are studying. The lesson structure remains the same in KS2 with the addition of guided reading activities and small group discussion tasks to embed the key reading strategies. Comprehension is further developed through the use of book journal activities. 

We run a number of Reading interventions to ensure that children who fall behind are supported to catch up quickly.

Writing Documents

Policies

 

Curriculum Documents

 

Useful Websites

Phonics Play

BBC Bitesize - Karate Cats

BBC Bitesize

Book Trust - Stories & Fun Games

 

Mellor English on Twitter