Reading and Phonics

At Horndale County Infant and Nursery School our staff strive to do their best to have all children reading as soon as possible. We have specific schemes in place which are followed throughout the school, this along with fully trained teaching staff, help children develop a real love of books and our aim is for every child to learn to read and be successful at reading.

Speaking and listening are the foundations for reading and writing. Even everyday activities such as preparing meals, tidying up, putting shopping away and getting ready to go out, offer you the chance to talk to your child, explaining what you are doing. Through these activities, children hear the way language is put together into sentences for a purpose.

Books are a rich source of new words for your child; words you would not use in everyday conversations appear in books. Children need to have a wide vocabulary to understand the meaning of books, so read aloud and share books as often as you can. They will enjoy it and it will be useful to them when they come across these words in their own reading later on.

At Horndale our pupils learn to read effectively and quickly using the Read Write Inc. programme. Using RWI, the children learn to read effortlessly so they can put all their energy into comprehending what they read. We make sure that pupils read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and the common exception words. This is so that, early on, they experience success and gain confidence that they are readers. Re-reading and discussing these books with the teacher supports their increasingly fluent decoding.

This begins in Nursery, where the children are introduced to a wide variety of books, they are introduced to letter sounds and oral phonic activities. This continues into Reception, to worded books and right through to Year 2 where the children learn more comprehension skills. Each child will progress at their own pace and be supported at each stage by trained staff to enable them continue to make progress.

Opportunities to use Language for a variety of purposes are planned for throughout the curriculum using the conventions of letter forming, spelling and punctuation, developing children’s confidence, precision and competence in speaking and listening and in written English, in line with the National Curriculum and expectations.

Please also view our reading section of the website for further information on Reading and Phonics.

Please also view the following links:

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