At St Alphonsus RC Primary School, we put Christ at the centre of our teaching and learning.  Our curriculum stems from our Mission Statement: 

God lives in me. I am His witness. 

I respect everybody, everybody respects me. 

In our loving school, everyone is unique. 

Just like the flowers in the field, as they

grow, we too grow in God’s love each day.

The life and teaching of Jesus and the values of the Gospel underpin all aspects of school life.

Why do we teach Reading at St Alphonsus RC Primary School?

At St Alphonsus Primary School, we firmly believe that reading is one of the most valuable skills we can teach our children, as it opens up a world of endless opportunities.

In today’s fast-paced world, where technology often dominates our attention, nurturing a love for reading has become more important than ever.

Our primary aim is to instill in your children the joy of reading. We are committed to creating vibrant and engaging learning environments in every class that encourages exploration and discovery through a range of diverse, quality texts that will cater to their interests and provide a platform for discussion and reflection.

Through a variety of reading activities, your child will be encouraged to develop reading skills, such as decoding, fluency and comprehension. They will explore different genres, authors and styles and they will be guided to develop reading preferences, empowering them to become independent, lifelong readers.

We firmly believe that reading should not be confined to the classroom so we want to establish a strong home-school connection that fosters a reading culture at home. Then together we can inspire our children to become avid readers.

We want the children to believe …

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

How reading is taught at St Alphonsus RC Primary School

At St Alphonsus RC Primary School, we aim for all our children to become fluent, confident and passionate readers. 

Children who read regularly or are read to regularly, have the opportunity to open the doors to so many different worlds!

Reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners.

We achieve this at St Alphonsus RC Primary School through the systematic teaching of Phonics which is taught using Read Write Inc (RWI) throughout EYFS and KS1. Children who also need to, continue developing their Phonics skills in Year 3 and Year 4. Phonics is delivered through daily sessions. In Reception a session initially lasts for 20 minutes but then builds up over time to 45 minutes and this continues in KS1.

The Read Write Inc Fresh Start programme is used in Year 5 and Year 6. This has age-appropriate materials with proven results for older struggling readers to help them catch-up fast, with clear and supportive teaching materials

What is Read Write Inc?

• Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics complete literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling.
• It encourages children to develop a love of books by reading daily, at home and at school.
• It gives children access to a wide range of books at school and at home.
• It has partner work at its heart. It ensures every child participates throughout the lesson. Children work in pairs and talk together at every stage of the lesson to enhance their spoken language and embed their understanding.
• This programme allows children to become competent in the arts of speaking and listening, sharing ideas through partner work and class discussions in order to promote deeper thinking and develop speaking and debating skills.
• It allows children to experience powerful words to develop a knowledge of exciting vocabulary from a range of classic and contemporary stories, poems and factual texts.
• It ensures children are engaged and praised for effort and learning.

   

RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found by clicking here.

As well as learning to read and blend real words, children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words/Alien words’. These words are not real and cannot be found in the dictionary. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer term.  These words provide endless opportunities for children to apply and practice their thinking in a range of different contexts. 

Fred the frog helps the children to blend the sounds together and then he is used to help children read. The teachers will often use the phrase ‘Fred talk’ to sound out words.

Progressing through the stages

Children are introduced to initial sounds. They begin to learn how to 'read' the sound in words and how those sounds be can be written down. When children can blend independently they progress on to reading green words. Once children can read green words they begin to read stories in their RWI sessions.  Each storybook is matched to the sounds they can already read, which sets them up for success and helps to build their confidence with reading.  It is through the storybooks we teach children red words, which are irregular words that are not phonetically plausible and cannot be sounded out (Fred talked). 

Every storybook is taught in the same way: children practice reading the green words in the story and also the red words before they begin to read the book. Children will then read the book several times to help build their fluency and comprehension skills.

As children progress, they work on complex sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level. Once children become fluent speedy readers they will move on to the RWI Comprehension programme.

Assessment 

We assess all children on the scheme every six weeks, to ensure that they are placed in the correct group for their reading ability. This also allows us to quickly identify any children who need some support. If this arises, we provide one-to-one tutoring for the child in accordance with the RWI scheme to help individuals make rapid progress and once again be at the level of their group. Groups are taught by either a teacher or a TA who have had Read, Write Inc Phonics training.  

Reading with your child

Your child will bring home reading books to share with you. It is important you listen to them read each day. Help your child to decode words at home- it is really important to pronounce the sounds correctly.

Please see the videos below for more information about Read Write Inc. 

If you are struggling to find a new book for your child, please click here to take you to a website which has a great selection of recommended books for each Year group in school.

Why do we teach Writing at St Alphonsus RC Primary School?

We want our children to receive a high-quality English education so that all pupils have the skills and knowledge they need to enable them to communicate effectively and creatively through spoken and written language and equip them with the skills they need to become life-long learners.

The writing curriculum for English is carefully sequenced to build knowledge, skills, vocabulary and experiences which build on prior learning and enable pupils to make connections between ideas, their learning and the world around them.

Our writing curriculum is rooted in the use of high quality texts which are used expertly to teach and enthuse children to produce work which is exciting and technically skilled.