Our Intent

The ability to read accurately, fluently and with good understanding is a vital skill and central to future life success. At St. John’s we are committed to ensuring that all children are equipped with this ability and develop the love of reading widely and often, both for pleasure and acquiring information.

We strive to teach our children to read effectively and quickly by placing the teaching of systematic, daily phonics at the heart of our practice. By following the Letters and Sounds phonics programme we endeavour to teach the children to recognise the sound that each individual letter, then combinations of letters, make, and then blend these sounds from left to right to make a word. Children are taught to use this phonic knowledge as the route to de-code new words they see and hear, to be able to read common exception (or “tricky words”) which are introduced at regular intervals, and then progress from overtly sounding out then blending words, to sight reading fluently and with expression.

Our children build this phonic knowledge from the EYFS onwards during daily focused phonics teaching. The sessions are intensive, fast paced and cumulative, and adopt a multi-sensory approach in order to fully involve and engage the children.

At St John’s we also recognise and value the vital role that parents/carers play in helping their child to learn to read and invite them into school from the earliest opportunity, and at regular intervals, to observe phonics teaching, attend meetings relating to phonics, and speak directly to staff about their child’s progress, in order to ensure that parents/carers are fully supported and armed with the information and skills needed to support their child’s reading at home.

Home reading books are organised by phonic phase so that the books the children receive are closely matched to the letter sounds and tricky words they know. This enables the children to experience reading success from the outset and helps to build their confidence and enjoyment when reading.

They are given the opportunity to read and then re-read the books in order to build their confidence and fluency in word reading from the earliest opportunity, as appropriate for each individual.