Early Reading at St John’s

At St John’s Primary School early reading is centred on the exploration of quality texts which engage and inspire our children. Reading for pleasure is at the heart of all that we do at St John’s and this begins as soon as the children enter the EYFS.

We recognise that the Early years of a child’s life are crucial and the experiences that we offer the children in the EYFS and KS1 are fundamental in laying the foundations for the future reading success. Within the EYFS, continuous provision will build upon the experiences and content of the chosen text, and this fully immerses the children in their learning ensuring all areas of learning are purposeful and relevant.

Early reading ignites creativity, sparks curiosity, and stimulates the imagination in young children. Often, this leads to role-play as children grow which helps to develop other skills such as empathy, problem-solving, and morality.

Phonics

At St John’s we follow the The Sound!Start Phonics for Letters and Sounds programme. This program outlines a whole-class mastery approach to teaching phonics. It enables all children to keep pace with ambitious expectations for reading and spelling through systematic repetition and practice of taught knowledge and skills. The programme is designed to embed high-quality teaching, carefully focusing attention on the things we want children to know and remember whilst simultaneously building staff subject knowledge and expertise.

Please use the link 

Soundstart Phonics Progression

Structure of phonics

Phonics is taught daily in discrete whole class lessons. In the lessons, the children will be taught new phonemes, shown strategies to enable them to decode, read and write words successfully. The children are given opportunities within the lesson to practise and apply these skills with activities that are matched to their phonic ability. 

The DfE have provided more information about phonics for parents. 

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/12/everything-you-need-to-know-about-phonics-in-schools/