GLF Schools

Reading

The English curriculum enables children to develop as strong readers and writers, which is underpinned through developing high-functioning oracy within the Talk for Writing Programme. A culture of early excellence in reading has been created through the home-school partnership, which provides the foundation for reading development. The school has introduced Read, Write, Inc. to assist early reading. From these foundations the DERIC (Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Infer and Choice) model informs whole school quality-first teaching.

Resources and extra-curricular opportunities enable children to develop a life-long love of reading. Texts are carefully selected to afford rich writing opportunities and these link to all aspects of the curriculum. Within lessons there is an explicit focus on teacher modelling and direct vocabulary instruction, in order to create independent, skilled readers and writers.

We support parents weekly through our school newsletter, please refer to these for useful tips and advice to improve reading at home.

At Springfield Primary School we use a synthetic phonics programme to teach reading in Early Years and Key Stage 1, called 'Read Write Inc' produced by Ruth Miskin. As children progress and can decode fluently they move onto our personalised reading scheme which develops children’s comprehension, vocabulary, writing, critical thinking and discussion skills and grammar – in a fun and meaningful way.

Click here to view the year group subject overview

Read, Write, Inc. explained:

Phonics

Read Write Inc. Phonics is a method of teaching reading which is centred around learning the sounds of the letters (phonics), and then blending them together to read words. The children also learn to break down words into individual sounds in order to write them.

The children are assessed and grouped according to their ability. They work in small groups with a teacher and a teaching assistant. At the end of each half term the children will be assessed again to check they have made progress and will be grouped again. In addition to the Read Write Inc programme the children will also be working on writing skills and storytelling in their classes with their own class teacher.

Please click here to see how we teach phonics

Reading

Using Read Write Inc the children learn to read effortlessly so that they can put all their energy into understanding what they read. When using 'Read Write Inc' to read the children will: learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts; learn to read words by blending the sounds together; read lively stories featuring words they have learnt to sound out; show that they understand the stories by answering 'find It' and 'prove it' discussion questions.

Writing

Read Write Inc. allows the children to spell effortlessly so that they can put their energy into working out what they want to write. When using 'Read Write Inc' to write the children will: learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds; learn to write words by sounding them out and then writing the corresponding graphemes; learn to write simple and then increasingly complex sentences; compose a range of texts using discussion prompts; compose stories based on picture strips. 

Talking

When using 'Read Write Inc' the children work in pairs to: answer questions to practise every activity; take turns talking to each other; give positive praise to each other.

Blending

Children learn to read words by blending the letter-sounds that are in the Speed Sound sets. Help your child learn to read words by sound-blending e.g. c-a-t = cat. Help children to say the pure sounds, as quickly as they can, and then to blend the sounds together to say the whole word.

Pronouncing sounds

You can practise saying the sounds by downloading the phonic sounds PowerPoint presentation. Save the presentation to your computer and click 'view slideshow' to run the presentation. Click your left mouse button to cue each sound.

Visit the Read Write Inc Parent's Page for further information.

Book Week:

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On Monday 1st March, students at Springfield School participated in our annual event - Book week. This year looked a little different, but we still had lots of fun! Each day the children had the opportunity to listen to the teachers reading their favourite stories virtually. On Thursday, which was World Book Day, it was very exciting to see the children and staff at both home and school celebrate by dressing up as their favourite book character. The students also enjoyed completing virtual quizzes linked to familiar books and authors. 
 
On Friday, we were very lucky to have author Ian Billings join us for live virtual workshops in each of the Key Stages. He talked to us about books he has written and what it is like to be an author, it was very inspiring! 
 
Throughout the week, children in each year group completed a book study, with various reading and writing based activities linked to these stories. Children also took part in an illustration and unusual reading photo competition as well as completed fun Book Week activities such as bookmark making and book cover designing. 
 
Learning Resource Centre
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Our Learning Resource Centre is used as a place where children can check-in and out books using our online system, Junior Librarian. All classes have a weekly slot where pupils can listen to or read fiction and non-fiction books independently. Teachers hear readers during this time slot, ensuring children are reading texts they enjoy and are pitched appropriately. At lunchtimes, children come in to use the room for research purposes, using the school Ipads or to change and read books. 

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