Milton Park Primary School
Every day a learning adventure
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Milton Park Primary School
Every day a learning adventure
Reading is one of the main ways we all acquire the knowledge and vocabulary that we need to participate fully in society. As a result, securing reading proficiency and enjoyment, and providing access to a wide range of high-qulaity reading materials – both fiction and non-fiction – is a key priority at Milton Park Primary School.
In practice
There are two main dimensions to reading:
At Milton Park, we have a dedicated team of experienced staff who understand the reading process and deliver opportunities for children to acquire, use and extend their skills.
Decoding
Phonics is taught daily in Reception and Year 1 following the Learning Exchange programme for Phonics into Early Spelling. All children receive high quality phonics teaching for 20 minutes a day with the learning planned and taught from Step 1 to Step 9. Children are taught the alphabetic code, the skill of blending for reading, the skill of segmenting for spelling and the understanding that this is a reversible process. Where necessary, explicit phonics teaching for those children who have not secured the necessary phonics knowledge continues into Year 2 and beyond.
From Reception children are given decodable books that match the Step they are working within or secured. This gives them the opportunity to practise segmenting and blending for reading and develops their fluency. When children demonstrate these skills, they move into the school reading scheme starting at level 6 and continuing until the fully secure level 24, after which they become a 'free reader' independently selecting their own books based on our school's i-pick criteria.
Phonics First Reading
In addition to discrete phonics teaching, we also consistently deploy Phonics First Guided Reading at Milton Park. Starting in Term 2 of Reception, all Guided Reading sessions follow the same phonics-driven format which is designed to ensure that children apply their phonics knowledge in order to gain reading fluency. Once decoding becomes automatic, the children have more capacity for comprehension. This approach continues with children until they are fluent readers.
Milton Park Reading Scheme
Once children have secure knowledge of letter/sound correspondences and can blend words confidently, they access our levelled reading scheme that has various books from published schemes such as Oxford reading tree and PM benchmarking. Within each level, there are fiction and non- fiction texts designed for children to experience a range of genres, authors and publishers.
Comprehension
When children have acquired fluency through our Phonics First approach, the emphasis shifts to comprehension. With this in mind, we deploy a range of strategies and techniques to develop the children’s ability to make meaning of the texts they are reading.
Children right across the school participate in regular group Guided Reading sessions when teachers work with children to develop and apply the key comprehension skills they need to fully engage with a wide variety of text types.
We also use Better Reading Partners, experienced individuals who work one-to-one with children to help them practise and apply the skills taught by teachers in a relaxed environment.
We strive to promote an enjoyment of and engagement with reading which will benefit our pupils in all their learning at Milton Park and, importantly, long after they leave.
Additional support
Rapid intervention is given to those children who need additional support with phonics and reading.