Three books are issued weekly in Year One. Your child will be given a reading book which is matched to their phonics according to weekly assessments. They will also be given a banded book according to level which can be shared as well as a library book of their choice. In addition to this all children will be allocated levelled e-books that can be shared via their online Bug Club account at www.activelearnprimary.co.uk.
Phonics
When teaching phonics we follow Bug Club Phonics which is a DfE approved synthetic phonics program. Bug Club Phonics provides everything needed to help children succeed in early reading. It combines a comprehensive teaching program and fully decodable print books with an online reading world which includes eBooks, interactive assessments and games.
Each child’s phonics and high frequency words are checked daily by an adult and marked on their individual phonics record. This information is then used to inform next steps for teaching and to allocate their weekly reading book. Any gaps that have been identified will be plugged and books sent home accordingly. There is also an official half termly phonic and word assessment which is recorded using Phonics Tracker.
There are two daily teaching sessions of phonics; one in the morning where a new phoneme is taught and one in the afternoon when a revision session takes place. We follow the mastery approach so children are kept together. All children read words and sentences in these sessions linked to the phonemes taught that day. There are also additional sessions for children who require further support to decode and a weekly extension group for children who have completed Phase 5 of phonics to develop their comprehension skills. In these sessions children work on vocabulary, inference, retrieval, prediction and sequencing.
Guided Reading
Alongside the daily phonics sessions the children develop their breadth and pleasure of reading, what reading is good for and a knowledge of how books work in a guided reading session. Whole class guided reading occurs daily with 6 focus children per day. The Children are targeted with specific questions based on lesson objectives and individual assessments and may be asked to read aloud either individually or as a small group (in order to develop confidence in some children).
Whole class guided reading helps to provide a model for questioning and analysing a text. By asking questions, the teacher can introduce children to the concept of ‘reading between the lines’, show them new vocabulary, and prompt children to share their ideas. It extends thinking and questioning and develops inference, comprehension and interpretation skills. Whole-class reading sessions also mean that children of all attainment bands are immersed in the same high-quality literature and the discussions that these texts promote. By teaching reading in this way all children are reading daily and exposed to texts that they might otherwise never have access to. Developing a love of reading and inspiration to read is also the purpose of these sessions.
Reading Comprehension
In addition to guided reading sessions, reading comprehension is also developed in English lessons through the use of the “Totally Pawsome Reading Gang!” A team of canine characters whose sole purpose is to explore the KS1 reading content domains and break them down into accessible questions for children to unpick and explore.
The Totally Pawsome Gang
Vocabulary Victor represents content domain 1A: To draw on knowledge of vocabulary to understand texts. These questions help children to think about the words an author has used, what those words might mean – as deduced by context – and alternative word choices which would convey the same meaning. Questions associated with vocabulary will always appear with Victor’s red theme.
Rex Retriever represents content domain 1B: To identify and explain key aspects of fiction and non-fiction texts, such as characters, events, titles and information. These questions help children to answer questions by finding evidence in the text – finding and copying accurately from the words given by the author. Questions associated with retrieval will always have Rex’s golden theme.
Sequencing Suki represents content domain 1C: To identify and explain the sequence of events in texts. These questions help children to recall the order in which events happened in the text. This could pertain to what happened first or last, matching events to the date or time they happened or numbering a series of events chronologically. Sequencing questions will appear with Suki’s light blue theme.
Inference Iggy represents content domain 1D: To make inferences from the text. This helps children to hunt for clues within the text to help them to infer why or how something is true. These questions might link to how characters feel, their actions or the events of the story. These questions can be tricky for some children so Iggy breaks them down into small, progressive steps which build on inference skills. His questions can always be seen with a green theme.
Last but not least, Predicting Pip represents content domain 1E: To predict what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far. Pip uses her crystal ball to help children to see into the future – predicting the events of the future based on what has already happened. Pip’s questions involving predictions will always appear with her purple theme.
Take One Book from Just Imagine
We use the ‘Take One Book’ framework for teaching English. Take One Book is a literature-based, process-led approach to teaching reading. It promotes depth of understanding and covers engagement and response, comprehension, fluency, vocabulary and language study. High-quality, short texts cover fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Links are made to science and humanities to help schools integrate reading and writing in subject disciplines. Each half term has an overarching theme based on a book. Take One Book encourages children to read and write different text types such as stories, letters and diary entries. We use a hook to engage the children and give the lessons purpose, such as creating information or writing letters to characters.
Take One Book is a process-led approach which comprises four reading stages:
Stage 1: Hook and Orientation addresses what readers need to know before accessing a text.
Stage 2: First Encounters secures a literal understanding and provides exploratory opportunities to help readers build understanding.
Stage 3: Digging Deeper builds on pupils’ knowledge to structure new learning with explicit skills teaching and language study.
Stage 4: Review and Reflect offers opportunities to review learning, reflect on thematic content and engage in text to world discussion.
Writing opportunities run alongside the reading sessions with a series of short and longer writing tasks. Wider learning opportunities links are also made to the curriculum to make it easier for teachers to integrate reading into subject areas.
Texts are generally short to allow teachers to work with whole texts and provide time for re-reading. Teaching sequences provide between two and six weeks of work, with flexibility to select from the building blocks at each stage.