At Field Place Infant School, there is a determination that every child will learn to read. This originates with a step-by-step approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling systematically through phonics.

Teachers and other adults are well trained and the teaching of reading is at the heart of our curriculum. As the children progress through our school, the emphasis will begin to change from learning to read to include reading to learn.

Early reading skills are taught consistently and rigorously. Children in our nursery follow the letters and sounds phase 1 programme; this ensures they have the skills needed to learn letter/sound correspondence quickly when they enter reception. In reception and key stage one, planned daily phonic sessions teach children the complex connections between sounds and letters, which is essential when learning to read and spell. The best phonics teaching involves active participation by all children, detailed tracking of their progress and timely intervention for any child who may be struggling. Structure, fast pace, praise and reinforcement are all key features of our phonics sessions.

Alongside our systematic teaching of phonics, we also instil a love of reading. This begins with high quality book sharing opportunities in the Early Years. In these sessions, the emphasis is on developing children’s cultural capital. We do this through talking about texts; making connections with children’s experiences and broadening children’s horizons through the use of carefully chosen, high quality texts. Book shares also ensure children develop their understanding of how stories and poems work. Adults across the school continue to ensure all children are read to daily as they move through key stage one.

Once children are able to successfully decode words, we begin to work on reading fluency. We enable children to read with accuracy, proper speed, and meaningful expression through targeted teaching and additional intervention work as needed.

All children take home books that are carefully matched to their stage of reading. Children in Reception, Year 1 and some of Year 2 will bring home the RWI book that they have been focussing on during their Phonics session each Friday. During the week, they would have explored the decodable and non-decodable words from the story and would have read the book three times to increase their fluency and confidence. Children have access to colour banded books within their classroom which they can also take home. Children in Year 2 who are off the RWI scheme take home these colour banded books too. All children are also encouraged to take home a 'real' book from their class to promote their love of reading. Alongside this, children and parents have acces to 'Reading Hub' at home where they can read books assigned to their year group and other books they have an interest in. Core words are also taught and sent home. This supports growing fluency and confidence.

Talk threads through all teaching of reading ensuring children develop their ability to not only read but also to comprehend text and develop their higher order reasoning skills. Through these discussions, children make inference from text and begin to understand the impact of author intent.

We are very aware that all children are unique and therefore learn at different paces.
Teachers ensure all children who may need additional support are identified early. Support staff deliver high quality interventions that enable children to make rapid progress and narrow any gaps between themselves and their peers.