Phonics and Reading

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Language and communication skills are at the heart of our curriculum at Rowan. We recognise that the skills developed in Reading and English are important for promoting learning across the curriculum.

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We actively promote a love of reading at Rowan. Staff are passionate about books and reading and carefully selected texts are integral to the curriculum at all levels.

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 Our reading and phonics curriculum is delivered based on a developmental model. Pupils working at the engagement phase will experience concepts through play and exploration. This includes Phase One/ “Foundations for Phonics” phonics activities which are divided into 7 aspects. These are general sound discrimination of environmental sounds, instrumental sounds and body percussion, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and then moving onto oral blending and segmenting. Many of these activities will be accessed through activities such as music, outdoor learning or sensory play.  Students may then move onto more traditional pedagogical strategies in the semi-formal and formal pathways. Pupils who are working at Phase 2 and above will follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) programme to teach early reading and spelling. Once children are able, they will be given a fully decodable reading book. Phonics interventions take place where needed across the week.

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The majority of pupils at Rowan need support developing their phonological awareness skills for their whole Rowan journey.

 

Further support for parents can be found at:

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/

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