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Phonics & Reading

The reading journey at St Just is at the heart of all our learning from when your child first joins us through to the completion of their primary education.
 
Starting with their phonics sounds, using Bug Club the children learn to read supported through specific phonics teaching and the accompanying reading scheme to build the early foundations and confidence to be readers for life. Throughout their time on the reading scheme, the children can progress through our Reading Rungs programme by regularly reading at home. 
 
Once confident readers, the teaching focuses on comprehension, inference and vocabulary and the children become 'Tree Readers'. As a tree reader, children work through our reading rambles of Pine, Copper Beech, Silver Birch and Golden Oak which guide them through a broad range of appropriately challenging reading as they grow into well-rounded readers.
 
The page below is a treasure chest of information and resources to support your child on their reading journey at St. Just.
Reading Information

Phonics and reading scheme

      Phonics and Reading Schemes at St. Just Primary School           

At St Just Primary School we follow the DfE accredited Bug Club Phonics programme. We use this to introduce reading and spelling ‘phonetically regular’ words from Reception through to Year 2 (and subsequent years if individuals need it).

We have chosen to use the Bug Club Phonics programme to help children learn to read. The programme follows an approach of synthesising phonemes (see below), associated with graphemes a child sees; or put another way, learning to read by blending the sounds associated with the letters a child sees. The programme is the product of extensive research on the best way to teach children how to read.

The reading books children take home are designed to support them in practising and consolidating the learning they have done at school. They also enable children to experience the pleasure and pride of reading their own books.

All the books in Bug Club Phonics have been finely-levelled to ensure that all children can read books at exactly the right level for them. What’s more, the books can be accessed on a personalised website for each child.

What is phonics?

Phonics is one method of teaching children how to read and write. Phonics is all about sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words.

Some are represented by one letter, like ‘t’, and some by two or more, like ‘ck’ in duck and ‘air’ in chair.

Children are taught the sounds first, then how to match them to letters, and finally how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling.

Synthetic phonics refers to ‘synthesising’, or blending, the sounds to read words. It is based on the idea that children should sound out unknown words and not rely on their context.

● Phoneme - a sound in a language that has its own distinct sound. An example of a phoneme is "c" in the word "car,") Phonemes can be put together to make words.

Grapheme - A way of writing down a phoneme. Graphemes can be made up from 1 letter e.g. p, 2 letters e.g. sh, 3 letters e.g. tch or 4 letters e.g ough.

How is the scheme implemented in school?

Phonics

In Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children have differentiated daily phonic lessons that follow the relevant Bug Club Phonics phases and progression. The children are grouped according to the phase they are working on to ensure activities are pitched at the correct level to allow them to make the best possible progress. Resources are provided by Phonics Bug and we also have access to other resources as and when needed.

Reading

Bug Club – Activelearn online

Our ‘learning to read’ Bug Club books are an extension of the Phonics Scheme. Each group of children will have a teacher led guided reading lesson every week, followed by three associated reading activities on other days. All children receive an individualised online reading library, Bug Club, specifically chosen by the class teacher to meet their individual needs.  These books will be allocated after their guided reading lessons.

Reading Records – This book is to be completed by staff and parents when a child has read – both guided reading and additional books.  It is a way to communicate their thoughts on the book, ask any questions they may have or share any difficulties they encountered.  It is also a way to celebrate their achievements through positive feedback, stickers and stamps.

 Bug Club Information
Phonics Information
Reading at home
 
Scheme Readers:
 
Children who are using our reading scheme are a priority for us. We will hear them read in school daily, either as part of a phonics lesson, as part of class learning, part of an intervention group or as an individual 1:1 with an adult, and more often than not it will be a combination of these. We strongly encourage this is reinforced at home through reading their issued scheme book. The children's understanding of what they read is paramount, so talking about the plot, characters or information contained will all be beneficial to their progress.
 
Reading Rungs:
 
Throughout their time as a scheme reader, all home reading contributes towards the children earning different coloured Reading Rungs. Please see the additional information below.
 
 Reading at home continued...
 
Tree Readers:
 
Once children are ready to progress from the scheme they become a 'Tree Reader'. This means that we are encouraging them to make their own decisions in what they read next, whilst still guiding them towards reading choices that are suitable for their continued reading development. This allows us to ensure that all children are continuing to access a broad variety of book genres and authors, but still ensuring their reading ability is both supported and challenged to continually progress. The children will earn different tree badges as they progress.
 Library books:
 
In addition to reading books, all children also have access to the school library to regularly update their library book. The intention of a library book is that they select a title to take home to share. This is part of how we develop a love of reading in our children. We want them to pick books that catch their attention or spark their imagination that is less about them being able to access independently, but instead to access with an adult at home for a shared experience.