Reading & phonics
We love reading
The heart of all our learning
Arden Forest Infant School we put reading at the heart of all our learning. We know that a love and knowledge of books improves pupils’ engagement in life-long learning.
As such, the pupils are provided with a variety of reading opportunities, including:
- Guided reading;
- Teacher-led story time;
- Regular independent reading;
- Cross-curricular reading;
- Timetabled allocations for use of the school library;
- Hearing texts read aloud on a regular basis;
- Regular reading of poems and sing songs including
- Nursery Rhymes;
- Reading at home.
Phonics
We follow the ‘Bug Club’ phonics scheme to teach phonics. This is a systematic synthetic phonics programme and whole school approach which ensures consistency in teaching phonics and early reading from reception to Year Two.
The ability to use phonic knowledge and skills enables children to segment and blend whole words, which then can be used to read sentences and texts. Pupils’ read phonics phase books which are fully decodable, both in school and at home. Daily phonics sessions of 20-30 minutes are grouped so that every child is working at an appropriate level of challenge. Pupils are assessed half-termly to ensure that they are making a good level of progress in phonics and are working within the appropriate phonics group.