Intent:
To ensure every child has the opportunity to build their confidence, enjoyment and ability in Reading and Phonics.
What is Reading?
Reading isn’t just about decoding words and developing fluency. It begins with the fundamentals of knowing how to hold a book and turn the pages, reading from left to right and top to bottom, knowing the difference between pictures and text and understanding that print carries meaning. Reading also involves interpreting visual cues, understanding and acquiring new vocabulary, making predictions and inferences. Learning to read is also about ‘listening’ to how someone reads because the use of expression and varying intonation is what helps to make reading an enjoyable and pleasurable experience.
Implementation:
Halcyon Way follow the ‘Letters and Sounds’ programme.
Phonics is used as the prime approach across Halcyon Way, however we do recognise that some children learn to read more efficiently through a ‘sight word’ approach. Therefore, the ‘See and Learn Programme’ may also be used where more appropriate.
Impact:
The successful approach to the teaching of Reading and Phonics at Halcyon Way, will result in children who know the mechanics of reading, for example which way to hold a book and which direction to read the text in. They will have the ability to read a variety of words, using their phonics skills of segmenting and blending and they will have the confidence to answer questions about the texts they have read. Ultimately the children will have developed a love and enjoyment for the life-long skill of reading!
