Early reading and beyond phonics

Intent

At Littleham C of E Primary School, we value reading as a vital life skill that is essential for children to succeed in their education and beyond, as well as a source of great enjoyment. As a result, we place a high priority on the teaching of reading. The ability to read, imagine, infer, and comprehend is a gift that children express through the development of their vocabulary, speech, and writing. We want all our children to develop a love for reading and to be ambitious in their text and vocabulary choices.

Implementation

Children have access to a wide range of high-quality reading books, which are initially grouped according to the Bug Club Phonics programme before moving on to Pearson’s book banded books. This provides a seamless progression from Reception through to Year 6. Children begin our phonics teaching programme as soon as they join the school. We use Bug Club Phonics as the foundation for phonics instruction. In EYFS (Phases 1-4) and Year 1 (Phase 5), children engage in daily, discrete phonics lessons, following a structured sequence of revisit, teach, practise, and apply. Phonics progress is tracked throughout EYFS and Key Stage 1 using our internal tracking systems and the Phonics Screening Check. Gaps and areas for improvement are quickly identified, and interventions are implemented to address them.

Once children have completed their phonics programme, they transition to using Accelerated Reader alongside book banded books from Pearson. This combination supports their reading journey throughout Key Stage 2, helping to build fluency, comprehension, and a love for reading. The school uses a blended approach to reading instruction, combining both guided reading and whole-class sessions. In guided reading, we follow Babcock’s ‘Re-Think Reading’ scheme, which introduces children to texts that increase in complexity over time. These sessions focus on comprehension, vocabulary development, prediction, summarising, and inference skills, providing opportunities for deeper exploration of texts in small groups. This is complemented by whole-class reading sessions, which further enhance children's understanding of challenging texts and promote shared discussions. Adults in classrooms read high-quality texts to the children daily, exposing them to a variety of text types, vocabulary, and information.

Impact

Reading progress is tracked across the school using guided reading records, Accelerated Reader data, and standardised reading assessments conducted three times a year. We also use Book Band assessments to use as pupils move through the book bands.