Phonics and Reading

At St James the Great Academy, we want to instill a love of reading and equip the children with the skills to read confidently and accurately. To support the children with this, our older children help the younger children to learn their phonics. We have a team of phonics ambassadors from Year 5 in place who regularly work with the children in Year 1 and Year 2.

We are passionate about reading at St James the Great Academy and work hard together to share our interests and promote a love of reading.

This year, we have had author Mr Willment come and share his fantastic book series. During the visit, each Key Stage 2 class had a workshop with him to learning about the process of writing a book.

We have introduced buddy reading across the school. The younger year groups have particularly enjoyed being read to!

Our Early Reading Intent Statement:

"To inspire children to become resilient, ambitious readers and writers through developing their knowledge, skills and passion for language."

Our Curriculum

We place significant emphasis on the importance of children acquiring the skills to develop a love of reading from an early age.

At St James the Great, we have now fully implemented the Read, Write Inc. (RWI) phonics programme. We want to ensure that the transition to this programme is as smooth as possible, therefore support at home will be important to us. The below handbook aims to provide all the necessary information about RWI phonics to parents and carers, including how we teach your children phonics at school and how you are able to support your child at home.

We will also run various parent workshops to help you to better understand the RWI programme and the books, videos and resources that will be shared with you at home. In the meantime, if you have any questions at all, please speak to your child's class teacher.

Phonics Progression of Knowledge & Skills

SJA Sound Progression Document

Phonics & Early Reading Subject Policy

English Phonics and Early Reading Subject Policy

Read, Write, Inc.

In Early Years and KS1, pupils have a RWI session every day. The session takes place between break and lunch time every day. As well as these daily sessions, 1:1 tutoring will be given to children identified as needing more support to keep up with the teaching and make the best possible progress.

RWI continues into Years 3 and 4, where identified children have sessions in the afternoon to accelerate their reading progress.

Click above for more information on RWI.

Fresh Start

Identified children in Years 5 and 6 will receive RWI 'Fresh Start' sessions. This is a learn to read programme that will teach the children to read quickly. It is a fast-paced, systematic programme.

Assessment

All children in the school who are being taught phonics are assessed every half term. As a result of these assessments, phonics groups and 1:1 tutoring sessions are adapted accordingly and extra support or challenge is given to individuals. Because of these half termly assessments, and the ongoing informal assessments by teachers every day, pupils who are not making the expected progress are identified early and given the extra support needed to help them to keep up with their peers.

Copy of SJA Phonics Handbook

Parent FAQs.pdf

set_1_sounds_parent_meeting (1).pptx

set_2and3_sounds_parent_meeting (1).pptx

Supporting Your Child at Home

Fred Games.pdf

handwriting_phrases_v2.pdf

Year R and 1 Picture Books Promoting Diversity.pdf

ten_top_tips.pdf

Parents and carers can access 27 Read Write Inc. Phonics eBook titles for extra practice with their children at home, plus three Fresh Start Anthologies. 62 Speed Sound Practice Sheets are also available to download.

Visit: www.oxfordowl.co.uk/read-write-inc-home

Parents will need to create a free account on Oxford Owl for Home to access the eBooks.