How we Teach Reading at Thorpe Primary School 
We passionately believe that all children should have the opportunity to enjoy books, irrespective of their ability or background. We believe that reading is a life skill to which everyone is entitled. We believe that all of our children should leave our school having met their potential in reading so they can be successful in their personal and professional lives and engage fully with the world around them.
We want to promote a lifelong love of reading and expose them to different text types; those that challenge, interest and inform them. We want all of our pupils to leave school as confident, fluent and expressive readers who can both understand, evaluate and question what they have read. We want our children to be inspired to read, inspired to write and inspired to learn more and we believe that reading provides this vehicle.
About Floppy's Phonics
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At Thorpe Primary School, we use Floppy's Phonics as the main vehicle to teach phonics and reading Floppy's Phonics is a systematic synthetic phonics teaching programme for early reading and writing success. The Floppy's Phonics programme teaches the letter/s-sound correspondences of the English alphabetic code explicitly and comprehensively for reading, spelling and handwriting. The five levels of the programme are structured to ensure consistent teaching and careful monitoring of children's progress and have inbuilt rigorous revision to ensure the success of every child. |
The Alphabetic Code
The Alphabetic Code shows the relationship between the discrete sounds we can identify in speech and the letters, or letter groups, which are code for the sounds - the letter/s - sound correspondences.
We use the Floppy's Phonics Alphabetic Code Chart - which lists the units of sound (phonemes) with with their corresponding spelling alternatives (graphemes) - as a visual aid in each classroom.
The units of sound are represented within slash marks to make it clear that this is the SOUND and not the letter shapes or spelling.
For example the sound /k/ can be made in the following ways.
Floppy's Phonics Teaching Sequence
Level 1
This phase supports children’s developing speaking and listening skills and linking of sounds and letters and focuses on listening to sounds in their environment.
Level 1+
At this level the children are taught simple grapheme-phoneme correspondences as shown in the chart below.
Level 2
At this level the children are taught simple grapheme-phoneme correspondences and consonant digraphs as shown in the chart below.
Level 3
Children are taught vowel digraphs and trigraphs.
Level 4
In level 4, children will revise familiar sounds and spellings and are introduced to common alternative spellings and pronunciations.
High Quality Teaching of Phonics and Guided Reading
In Nursery
Across school, we use Floppy's Phonics to teach early reading and phonics. The children are introduced to sounds through explicit teaching in Nursery throughout the year. We ensure that our children have access to an engaging reading area and that nursery rhymes and stories are part of the daily routine in Nursery.
In Reception
In Reception, our children are taught phonics daily using Floppy's Phonics and also access a guided reading session each day.
Two sounds per week are taught, using the 4-part structure of review, teach, practise, apply. Letter formation is also taught during this time to support handwriting, and make the teaching more multi-sensory.
In Year 1
Children access daily Floppy's Phonics and guided reading in Year 1. Lessons follow the teaching sequence of review, teach, practice, apply, and nonsense (also known as alien words) and tricky words are also taught each lesson. All children will read with an adult at least three times a week and daily "carousel" style reading sessions are delivered every day. In preparation for Year 2, whole class reading is usually introduced later in the year.
In Year 2
Children access daily phonics and whole-class reading in Year 2. Floppy's Phonics sessions take place at the same time as Year 1 and children are split into groups depending on their phonics ability. Sessions are taught by the class teacher, HLTA and teaching assistant, with some pupils working with the Year 1 teacher to consolidate their knowledge.
Whole class reading sessions take place every day and short texts are read over the course of a week. Texts are fiction and non-fiction to ensure that children access a range of genres and different types of writing. The children are taught and get to practise a wide range of reading skills using VIPERS (Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, Summarise) and complete comprehension questions each week.
Struggling readers are supported with additional phonics and reading sessions by a dedicated HLTA.
In Year 3
Children in Year 3 access daily phonics sessions and whole class reading. Floppy's Phonics sessions take place at the same time as years 1 and 2 and children are split into ability appropriate groups.
Whole class reading takes place every day using a variety of texts with the aim of increasing children's stamina for reading.
As in Year 2, struggling readers are supported with additional phonics and reading sessions by a dedicated HLTA.
In Key Stage 2
Whole class reading takes place every day across Key Stage 2 with VIPERS as the vehicle to improve children's reading.
To improve our children's stamina for and comprehension of longer texts, we have focused our guided reading around novels this year, although non-fiction texts and extracts are also used in reading sessions.
Vocabulary is a key priority in KS2 and children are encouraged to use dictionaries to develop their knowledge and understanding of unknown words. In addition, Individual Educational Plans are in place to support struggling readers.
How we Promote Reading
- Well stocked and welcoming school library at the heart of the school
- Whole school Reading Buddies
- Extra Curricular Book Club
- Regular book fairs, author visits and strong links with the School Library Service
- Little Library in the playground and engaging reading areas in each class
- Teachers and support staff display the names of titles they are currently reading so we can demonstrate reading for pleasure.
Reading For Pleasure
Looking for book recommendations for children who love a particular author? Click on the images below for similar books.
