Intent

At Winterbourne Earls Primary School, we are committed to instilling a passion and enthusiasm for reading in every child. It is our intent that with this at the heart of our values, we can provide each child with the opportunity to explore the world around them and widen their curiosity, creative thinking and imagination through reading. To achieve this, we will provide children with the phonic skills to decode and blend words, enabling them to access a range of texts. We want our children to leave Winterbourne Earls as confident, fluent readers who take pleasure in reading. It is our belief that Phonics provides the foundations for both reading and writing, enabling them to become the confident, passionate readers and writers that we want them to be.

Implementation

At Winterbourne Earls, we use Song of Sounds systematic phonics programme. All staff have received high quality training and the programme is being used across our school to develop early reading and phonics. Children receive a daily phonics session lasting 20 minutes 4 times a week and then on a Friday, they spend an extended session applying their learning from the week through a range of reading and writing activities. 

"We know we need to be doing all we can to support children and families to develop a love of reading. This starts with phonics at Winterbourne Earls, where the sequence through our scheme allows it to be followed in an engaging way through song, actions, books, games and activities. Explicit systematic phonics instruction is the most effective way to teach young children how to read and this includes the skills of turn taking, sharing of ideas and speaking and listening skills. We use Big Cat for Letters and Sounds to support our children with their phonics and the books and activities follow a sequence of the sounds taught."