Phonics and Early Reading
Intent
•    All children at Alston Primary School will learn to read with accuracy and fluency, regardless of their background, needs or abilities.
•    Children will leave Key Stage 1 with the reading skills to enable them to access the Key Stage 2 curriculum.
•    Children joining our school in Key Stage 2, who have had little or no education elsewhere will make accelerated progress in phonics to allow them to access the curriculum. 

Implementation
•    Use of the Read, Write, Inc (RWI) scheme to teach phonic skills throughout the school.
•    Daily RWI in Reception, Year 1 and 2 until they complete the programme. 
•    In Nursery, all children receive daily oral blending games and activities. Where appropriate, from the beginning of the summer term, children are taught single Set 1 sounds and/ or the relevant picture side of the RWI cards.
•    Children are placed in groups based on a half termly assessment to ensure the teaching they receive is specific to them. If a child is making accelerated progress, the Reading Leader or the Senior Reading Teacher will move the child into the most appropriate group as soon as is necessary. 
•    Key Stage 2 children requiring phonics teaching receive a 20-minute session daily from the Senior Reading Teacher.
•    Fast Track tutoring targeting unique gaps in the lowest, slowest progress children (Years R to 6).
•    Coaching for all reading teachers, as required, by the Reading Leader.
•    Targeted practice sessions, delivered regularly, by the Reading Leader.
•    Development Days with RWI trainer each term.
•    Half termly assessments to assess children’s phonics and reading ability.
•    Year 1 RWI PSC assessments (November, February, May) to inform the planning of the afternoon sessions.
•    Afternoon phonics lesson focusing on accurate decoding.
•    Daily story time to embed pleasure for reading and a love of books across the whole school.
•    Regular phonics workshops timetabled throughout the year.

Impact
•    All pupils including the weakest readers make sufficient progress to meet or exceed age related expectations.
•    High quality phonics teaching delivered by all reading teachers.
•    Increase in the % of Reception children who achieve the Early Learning Goals for Comprehension, Word Reading and

Writing.
•    All pupils to reach the required standard in the Phonics Screening Check (PSC) by the end of Year 2.
•    % of Year 1 pupils meeting the required standard in the PSC is higher than the national average.

Useful links for parents

Documents to support parents’ understanding of synthetic phonics and the RWI programme are available here;

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parentsandcarers/

There is also a video found on the same link to demonstrate how to say the sounds as well as many other videos giving information on the scheme and the importance of early reading.