English at Earlsmead

Reading

Our Vision for Reading

At Earlsmead Primary, we believe that reading is the gateway to the entire curriculum. Our approach is designed to move beyond basic decoding, ensuring that every child develops into a fluent, expressive, and analytical reader. By engaging with high-quality texts daily, we aim to foster a deep-rooted love for literature alongside the technical proficiency required for academic success. 

EYFS and KS1 Reading

Phonics 

At Earlsmead Primary, we strive to ensure all children become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. It is essential that our approach to teaching phonics and reading is accessible to all learners, regardless of their background.

Intent

Phonics (Reading and Spelling)

At Earlsmead Primary, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery and/or Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Earlsmead Primary we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Comprehension

At Earlsmead Primary, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.

Implementation 

Foundations for phonics in Nursery

• We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include: 

  • sharing high-quality stories and poems 

  • learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes

  • activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending

  • attention to high-quality language.

• We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

• We teach phonics for up to 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers. 

• Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.

• We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:

  • Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.

  • Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy. 

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

• Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.

• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace.  

• If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘Rapid catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week. 

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

• We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:

  • are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children

  • use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’

  • are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

• Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

  • decoding

  • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression

  • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text. 

• In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books. 

• In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books. Any new starters or children still learning to decode in KS2, follow our Rapid Catch Up Scheme of books.

Home reading

• The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family. 

• Reading books for pleasure also goes home for parents to share and read to children. 

• We also set a decodable E-reader matched to each child’s phonetic ability. 

• We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

Additional reading support for vulnerable children 

• Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily. 

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

• Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.

• Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme. 

• Lesson templates, Prompt cards and How to videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.

• The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning. 

Ensuring reading for pleasure 

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

• We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Earlsmead Primary and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.

• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books. 

• In Nursery/Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed. 

• Children from Nursery/Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will check these on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.

• As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to  keep a list of the books/authors that they have read and have enjoyed.

• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. It must be booked via the school booking system. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc).

Impact 

Assessment 

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

• Assessment for learning is used: 

  • daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support 

  • weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

• Summative assessment is used:

  • every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.

  • by SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place. 

Statutory assessment

• Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for catch-up 

• Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment as well as through the half-termly Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised summative assessments for those still decoding.

KS2 Reading

Intent - ‘Why?’

Our intent is to develop fluent, confident, and analytical readers who possess the vocabulary and comprehension skills to access the full breadth of the curriculum. We aim to move beyond basic decoding by immersing pupils in high-quality literature, including CLPE Core Books and HEP booklets. Our curriculum is designed to be inclusive; through a whole-class teaching model, we ensure every child is exposed to rich, age-appropriate heritage and contemporary texts. By aligning our teaching with the Reading Progression Map and the Reading Test Framework, we intend to systematically build the specific skills required for academic mastery while fostering a lifelong love for reading. 

Implementation - ‘How?’

KS2

The Instructional Model: Consistency and Depth

Our reading curriculum is underpinned by the CLPE Reading Scales and the Reading Progression Map, ensuring that teaching is developmentally appropriate and progressively challenging. To ensure no child is left behind, we utilise a whole-class teaching model. This allows all pupils to access rich, demanding texts—including CLPE Core Books, HEP booklets, and cross-curricular extracts—while receiving targeted support.

The Power of Repetition and Mastery

We recognise that true comprehension requires depth rather than speed. Therefore, pupils interact with the same text across a full week. This repeated exposure builds confidence, reduces cognitive load, and allows children to move from initial decoding to deep thematic understanding and critical analysis.

A Structured Approach to Skill Development

While every session incorporates a range of reading strategies, each week "highlights" a specific skill derived from the Reading Test Framework. This ensures systematic coverage of the essential pillars of reading:

• Vocabulary (Monday): We prioritise explicit vocabulary instruction. By identifying five key "teacher-led" words alongside child-selected terms, we bridge the word gap and give pupils the tools to unlock complex meanings.

• Teacher Modelling & Prosody (Tuesday): We value the "teacher as expert." Through oral rehearsal, recapping, and connecting texts to prior knowledge, teachers model the accuracy and expression (prosody) necessary for sophisticated reading.

• Fluency (Wednesday): Fluency is the bridge to comprehension. We utilise evidence-based strategies—including echo, choral, and paired reading—to ensure pupils develop the automaticity required for fluid reading.

• Cognitive Modelling (Thursday): Through "Think Alouds," teachers verbalise the internal thought processes of a skilled reader, making invisible comprehension strategies visible and accessible to all pupils.

• Analytical Questioning (Friday): Learning culminates in both verbal and written inquiry. Using the Reading Framework, we challenge pupils to apply their skills, with scaffolded questioning that supports struggling readers while extending our Greater Depth thinkers.

Inclusivity and Intervention

At Earlsmead, we are dedicated to ensuring all children achieve to their best ability. We understand that progress looks different for different children. To support these children, we have a number of interventions to aid with plugging as many gaps as possible before the end of Year 6. 

Rapid Catch-Up (phonics)

The main purpose of the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up program is to provide urgent, targeted intervention for children in Year 2 and above who are not yet reading at age-related expectations. The intervention aims to quickly close gaps in phonic knowledge through an accelerated pathway so children can confidently access the wider school curriculum.

Core Objectives

• Accelerated Phonic Knowledge: It fast-tracks pupils through Phases 2 to 5 of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised framework to recover missing grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs).

• Curriculum Access: It brings struggling readers up to speed quickly so they are no longer held back from learning other subjects in class.

• Reading Fluency & Accuracy: The targeted end goal is to get children reading at a minimum baseline of approximately 90 words per minute, which is the threshold required to understand the meaning of what they read.

• Fostering Independence: It helps children develop the decoding skills needed to read for pleasure and build a lifelong love for books.

Key Features of the Program

• A Faster Pace: It mirrors the exact structure and content of the core phonics program but moves at a significantly accelerated pace.

• Short, Sharp Sessions: Lessons are designed to be intensive 15 to 30-minute daily interventions to maintain high engagement.

• Age-Appropriate Resources: Pupils use specialized Collins Big Cat Catch-up Books that match their exact phonics decoding level, but feature illustrations and topics suited to older children.

• Gap-Targeted Assessments: Educators use specific diagnostic assessments to pinpoint exact learning gaps rather than forcing a child to restart the entire phonics curriculum from scratch.

Fluency Interventions

To support children’s fluency in reading, we offer a fluency intervention to children from Year 3 to Year 6. 

It achieves this through several core goals:

• Building Reading Speed & Accuracy: It targets children who can decode text but need to increase their reading speed (aiming to boost speeds from 60 to 120 words per minute) and reading accuracy.

• Teaching Prosody: The intervention emphasizes reading with expression, intonation, and rhythm so that children "bring the text alive," which dramatically improves their reading comprehension and connection to the text.

• Expanding Vocabulary & Comprehension: It builds a deeper understanding of language through targeted pre-reading vocabulary exercises, open “dialogic” discussions, and contextual background knowledge.

• Independent Reading: By utilising an inspiring range of fiction and non-fiction books, the program gives children the repeated practice required to confidently access the wider school curriculum and read for pleasure. 

The program is specifically designed after a child has completed the core Little Wandle phonics instruction and is already reading at a baseline fluency

Impact - ‘The End Result’ 

The impact of our reading strategy is evidenced by pupils who read with high levels of fluency, prosody, and confidence. Through repeated exposure to texts and explicit vocabulary instruction, children develop a sophisticated "word bank" that they apply across all subjects.

Our structured approach to the Reading Test Framework skills ensures that pupils are well-prepared for formal assessments, demonstrating strong progress from their individual starting points. Ultimately, the impact is seen in our pupils’ ability to talk articulately about books, their improved stamina for reading, and their capacity to think critically about the world through the texts they encounter. 

With interventions available for children across KS2, children make rapid progress in phonics and fluency, allowing children of all abilities to thrive and succeed.