What Does Early Reading Look Like at Bilsthorpe Flying High Academy?
All children in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 have a daily phonics session. The aim of teaching ‘phonics’ is to help children to decode (sound out) when reading and ensure that children can access the gateway to the world in which reading brings. At Bilsthorpe Flying High Academy we follow the Debbie Hepplewhite’s No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme. The programme provides a comprehensive step-by-step method for teaching reading, handwriting and spelling, through a series of carefully designed phonics routines to master the complex English Alphabetic Code. This scheme is a full systematic synthetic phonics programme that has been validated by the DfE in July 2021. In Key Stage 2, children have daily spelling and grammar lessons in line with the National Curriculum 2014 requirements. As part of their weekly homework, children have spellings linked to the spelling lists from the curriculum and the spelling rules taught during these daily lessons.
Assessment of Early Reading at Bilsthorpe Flying High Academy.
Whilst our children are learning to read, they will take home two decodable books which align with our phonics scheme:
1. A new decodable book that the children can read at an instructional level. The book has the GPCs and common exception words they know. Children can read it with at least 90%-word accuracy. This book is given to the children based on their most recent Phonics assessments.
2. A decodable book that the children have already had for a week, that the children can read at a fluent, independent level. The book has the GPCs and common exception words they know. Children can read it with at least 95%-word accuracy.
What does Early Reading look like in Key Stage Two?
For children in Key Stage 2 who haven’t passed the Phonics Screening children will continue to receive tailored phonics interventions that specifically focus on gaps in their learning. Children will continue to be assessed half termly and receive age appropriate phonically decodable texts to help promote a love of reading.