English

The first stage in helping children to become confident readers and enjoy books is teaching them the key skills that they need. Our philosophy is driven by the determination that every child in our school will learn to read, regardless of social and economic circumstances, ethnicity, the language spoken at home, or special education needs or disabilities. Opportunities for reading are around every corner at St Mary’s, from our structured phonics program to our high-quality classroom reading areas; which are stocked and updated by the Education Library Services frequently. Quality class texts are at the core of our English curriculum and used to further explore our topic work. 

Children who read regularly or are read to regularly have the opportunity to open the doors to so many different worlds. More importantly, reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners.

Read Write Inc Phonics

We believe that learning to read is the most important skill your child will master.  That’s why we have adopted a cohesive, engaging and progressive phonics programme – Read, Write, Inc (RWI) that all of our children can access.

Read Write Inc. is a comprehensive literacy programme designed for children aged 4 to 7, although it can be used as an intervention for older pupils. It supports children to:

• Recognise letter sounds (phonemes) and match them to written letters (graphemes)
• Blend sounds to read words
• Segment words to spell
• Build confidence with reading comprehension and writing fluency

Children are grouped according to their phonics knowledge and taught in small groups to ensure learning is at the right pace for them. Assessments are carried out regularly to track progress and regroup where needed.

How is RWI taught?

We begin teaching the programme in EYFS, when children are ready, up to Year 2. We continue providing the programme and further support to those children beyond Year 2 if they still need support in their reading.

Children are taught in small groups with a trained RWI teacher or TA for 30 minutes a day. Your child might also access RWI interventions with our specialist reading support teacher if they need extra support with phonics and reading.

The following elements form parts of your child’s RWI session

Reading

The children will:

• Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture
• Learn to read words using sound blending (Fred talk).
• Read lively stories featuring words they have learnt to sound
• Show that they comprehend the stories by answering ‘Find It’ and ‘Prove It’ discussion questions.
• Take home Read Write Inc. Book Bag Books to consolidate their reading
• Take home an additional home reading book to broaden their reading journey.

Writing

The children will:

• Learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent the 44
• Learn to write words by saying the sounds and graphemes (Fred fingers).
• Learn to say and write simple then more complex
• Compose stories based on picture
• Compose a range of texts using discussion

Speaking and Listening 

The children work in pairs to:

• Answer every
• Practise reading with a partner.
• Take turns in talking to each
• Give positive praise

Assessments

Children are assessed every 6 weeks by our phonics lead – Miss Hart.

Depending on their current phonological knowledge, children are assessed on their accuracy and speed of the speed sounds that they have been taught, including alien words and green words. Children who are reading RWI books at blue level and beyond are also expected to read a passage from unfamiliar stories, to see how they are applying their knowledge of sounds and the speed in which they are reading – fluency, pace and accuracy.

From here, children are then re-grouped into the next group colour. If children have not made progress or are not yet fluent readers, they will remain in the same group for the time being, with additional support timetabled for them. This could be 1:1 interventions or small group interventions with trained TAs. All staff meet frequently with the reading lead to discuss key children in their group who are not keeping up and need extra support, even during RWI sessions.

Where can I find out more information?

Parents are welcome to come into school to speak to their child’s teacher or the Phonics Lead, Miss Hart.

For general information on the Read Write Inc programme, parents may find out more via the website link below:

https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parentsandcarers/

What's next?

Shared Reading 

Once children successfully complete the Read Write Inc. phonics program (typically in Key Stage 1) and up through Year 6, they transition into structured Shared Reading sessions multiple times each week.

Shared Reading is a high-impact, whole-class approach designed to foster a lifelong love of literature while systematically sharpening key comprehension skills.

Developing Confident Comprehenders with VIPERS

To ensure reading instruction is both targeted and accessible, we use the VIPERS framework:

• Vocabulary

• Inference

• Prediction

• Explanation / Evaluation

• Retrieval

• Summarising

By grounding our sessions in VIPERS, teachers explicitly model reading strategies using rich, high-quality texts. This ensures that every child, regardless of starting point, builds the critical thinking skills needed to understand, critique, and enjoy complex texts.

Reading at Home

At St Mary’s, our expectation is for children to read at home every day. Reading at home encourages children to practice decoding, fluency, expression and understanding. Using our home-learning diaries, teachers will be able to support you and your child to develop their reading skills and what to focus on at home as well as noting successes in reading. 

Children in Reception and Key Stage 1 will bring home one closely matched phonics book, linked to the sounds they are learning that week, and one book-banded book to encourage a love of reading by exploring a variety of genres. These books are changed accordingly. 

Once children have completed their phonics journey they will independently choose reading books, linked to their current reading level, from our school library and book corners. Teachers guide pupils to choose appropriate texts. 

Reading for Pleasure

Daily story time in all classes is a non-negotiable part of the school day. Teachers choose books pertinent to each class, they may be linked to topic learning, a specific author or a special interest. Classes use a mixture of novels, short stories and poetry. 

We encourage active participation in World Book Day activities every year, hold focused weeks on specific books such as The Wonder Garden, Look up! and topics such as Traditional tales, providing lots of opportunities to explore books in a way that children may not have before. We have held multiple reading competitions, entered through our social media page and celebrated reading achievements in assemblies. 

We ensure that every class has a reading nook with quality books that we have invested in via the  ELS, using this resource we are able to keep our libraries relevant and teach children how to properly care for books. 

World Book Day 

Some of our classes during World Book Day.

Reading Competition

A small selection of the entries from our reading competition.

Links with Little Sutton library

Each year, every class will visit Little Sutton library to enhance their love of reading.  Whilst at the library, the children learn about different genres of books, the services provided by our library and have an opportunity to lend a book to take home and read.  Our visits help to promote a love of reading and appreciation for quality literature.

Writing 

Pathways to Write structures the foundations of our English planning across the school. Wider resources, including those from The Literacy Shed, Literacy Counts and more are used to enhance the teaching of writing within our curriculum offer. Writing opportunities are carefully planned so that they are progressive and appropriate for the ability of our children. 

We teach writing as whole class lessons, so that all children have access to the age-related content contained within the National Curriculum. Key Stage 1 children are supported in seeing the relationship between their developing phonic knowledge and how this can be transferred to writing, while Key Stage 2 children up-level their skills with teacher support. 

Focusing on development of oracy, we have created word mats for each topic taught in English. With this we aim to develop understanding and use of language, helping to support the children in broadening the vocabulary that they use.

When working on handwriting, children are able to gain a ‘pen license’ when they have the skills they need to form letters accurately and join their writing. Children are taught to:

• write from left to right and from top to bottom of the page
• start and finish letters correctly in a cursive style (from the Autumn Term of Year onwards)
• form regularly sized and shaped letters
• use regular spacing between letters and words
• take a pride in their written work and the overall presentation.

We recognise that children who are left-handed may need appropriate adaptations to support them, e.g. sitting on the left hand side of the table. We recognise that sometimes left-handed writers sometimes find letter formation more challenging and may need further adjustments or additional support.

In all stages of learning at St Mary’s, children feel supported in their writing journey. They expect challenge and are building resilience when it comes to spelling and handwriting. Furthermore, we strive to offer cross-curricular writing opportunities in all year groups, including EYFS. It is important that children see the value in writing for purpose. 

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