Phonics and Reading at Beresford:

Phonics

At Beresford Memorial CE First School, we believe that reading is fundamental to education. Proficiency in reading, writing and spoken language is vital for pupils’ success. We believe that for all of our children to become fluent readers and writers, phonics must be taught through a systematic and structured phonics programme.

We use a government approved validated systematic synthetic phonics programme called ‘Bug Club Phonics’ to plan and teach daily engaging phonics lessons. It is an approach to teaching phonics in which sounds made by individual letters, or a combination of letters, are blended and segmented to form words.

Our phonics teaching starts in our Nursery and follows a very specific sequence that allows children to build on the skills and knowledge of previous learning. Our daily phonics sessions are fun, involving lots of speaking, listening and games with the emphasis on children’s active participation and interactive teaching which is essential for their early reading and writing skills.

Our Phonics Programme

Bug Club Phonics is divided into six phases, with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning. There are no big leaps in learning. Children have time to practise, revise, recall and rapidly expand their ability to read and spell words.    

• In the Nursery, children follow the ‘Bug Club Phonics’ Phase 1 guidance which concentrates on developing children’s speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2. This is supplemented with high quality stories, rhymes and Jolly Phonics songs and actions to support their learning.
• In Reception and Key Stage 1, children follow the progression within the ‘Bug Club Phonics’
• Additional phonic lessons are taught daily to children who still have gaps by following the model of ‘Bug Club Phonics’ but plugging specific gaps identified through assessment.
• In Year 2 – Year 4 there are planned rapid phonic ‘catch-up’ sessions following a set model to address specific reading and writing gaps.

Phonics Screening Check

Children in Year 1 sit the Government Phonics Screening Check in the summer term. Children who do not pass the Phonics Screening Check in Year 1, will re-sit this in Year 2.

Please find the Phonics Screening Information below.

Phonics Screening 2022

Here are some links to websites which will support your child with their Phonics.

Top Marks

Phonics Play

Phonics Bloom

Reading

At Beresford Memorial CE First School, we believe that reading is fundamental to education. Proficiency in reading, writing and spoken language is vital for pupils’ success.

Our reading curriculum recognises the significance reading has on academic success, confidence and future aspirations. Reading is central to our ability to understand, interpret and communicate with one another. Sucessful readers have a higher chance of achieving their future potential.

Our reading curriculum encourages social and emotional awareness, promoting a culture of resilience and empathy whilst engaging with a wide variety of texts.

Our reading curriculum will provide possibilities, raising the profile of authors, poets and illustrators. Our aim is to promote wonder, curiosity and an eagerness for knowledge which can be achieved by becoming a fluent reader.

Our reading curriculum is built around the ‘Bug Club’ scheme of work which provides a progressive development of skills through a wide range of text types. These books, alongside supplementary texts, are used to teach reading objectives from the Primary National Curriculum.

Our Bug Club reading scheme begins with fully decodable texts, aligned to compliment the validated SSP program ‘Bug Club Phonics’.

Our reading journey begins with wordless books to encourage oracy and discussion with adults at home. Once children are secure with some Phase 2 phonemes and irregular words, they will be given a phonetically decodable book, in line with their reading ability. Children will continue to have a decodable book, matched carefully to their phonic ability, whilst they are developing their skills.

As children become more confident and fluent readers, the books will offer a broader range of text types and difficulty levels to allow them to further develop inference, deduction and comprehensions skills.

Children are expected to read regularly at home, either their home reader or e-books allocated to them on ‘Bug Club’.

On-line Reading

Bug Club is our online reading scheme with interactive activities. Each child has a personalised homepage where they’ll find the e-books they’ve been allocated by their teacher and motivating rewards. This ensures that each child will find a book at exactly the right level for them. The on-line reading world ensures that children can access independent reading resources anywhere, at any time. New books are allocated regularly.

How to Log On

The website address is: activelearnprimary.co.uk   The school ID is: bmfs

Your child’s class teacher will allocate them a username and password. These can be found at the front of your child’s Home School Links book.

Please use the link below to guide you through the log in process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paOEVzjgwnk

What is the best way to use Bug Club?

• Please use the link below to guide you through how to access e-books for your child.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1R8xRz43PU

• Find quality time to spend with your child as the electronic books are intended to be shared with an adult.
• Talk to your child about the book they have chosen.

Challenge your child to be a book detective: look at the book cover and see if they can guess what the book will be about or what type of book it is.

• Initially they may want to listen to the book and you can do this by pressing on the speaker icon.
• Now, get your child to read the book (as you would with their home reading book) using their different reading strategies like phonics, tricky words and understanding of the context of the sentence.
• Re-read the book if necessary. Your child should be able to read the book independently before they move on to their next book.
• Take time over each book to get the most learning from it.

How can I help my child with reading comprehension?

• Understanding the book is vital.
• As you read together, talk about what is happening in the book, what might happen next and anything that has puzzled them.

Get your child to re-tell the main parts of the story, using the pictures as a prompt if they need to.

When your child has finished a book, ask them whether they like it or not and encourage them to explain why.

• Now would be a good time to do the activities linked to the book.
• Click on the bug icon. If they get a question wrong, talk about the activity and have another go. Try to discourage just guessing.

Getting more e-books

It is important that your child can read books fluently and understand the information before they move on. If they race through the books, they will not be ready for books from the next colour band and they will struggle. This will really affect motivation.

If your child doesn’t have access to a computer or tablet at home, please inform your child’s class teacher. We can still provide a hard copy of the books if you prefer.

How does the teacher know how my child is getting on?

The teacher is able to log on to see what books your child has accessed and how many attempts it has taken to get the answers correct for each activity.

If you are sure your child can read the books fluently, write a note in your child’s Home School Links book to inform the class teacher.

Pupil Voice

Pupil Voice