At St Agnes’ creating life-long, confident readers is not discretely taught in phonics lessons.

From nursery upwards all classrooms have an inviting reading area with a selection of high quality books to choose from. Children experience democracy by voting for a book each day to be shared during daily story time.

Children enjoy weekly visits to our newly refurbished school library where they select a ‘choosing book’ to enjoy at home with an adult, in addition to their decodable reading books, which are matched to their current phonic knowledge. Our school library offers a huge variety of high quality books including books in other languages to represent our school community.

Reading is prioritised everywhere, our classroom doors display what we are currently reading, classes meet with their ‘reading buddies’ often to share stories, when it is a child’s birthday they bring in a book to share with the class and children in KS1 have access to selection of books each day at break time in the playground.

In year 1 children adopt a ‘reading dog’ and pledge to read to for 15 minutes each night at home, these dogs are regularly invited back into school for special events,such as reading picnics.

Core texts and poems have been carefully selected and planned for to represent, inspire and challenge our children, as well as ensuring progression across the year. In EYFS nursery rhymes are sequenced half termly and progress in difficulty, as we know nursery rhymes and song also support communication and language- the building blocks for reading and writing.

The use of phonics is one of the many skills needed to be able to be a reader and writer. We teach high quality phonics to ensure the children have the best start possible

We follow the Essential Letters and Sounds expectations of progress based upon:

• The delivery of whole-class, high-quality first teaching
• Applying the consistent, predictable and simplistic terminology, structure and resources of ELS supports high quality first teaching
• This ensures children know what is coming next, what they need to do and how to achieve success. This reduces cognitive overload and assists children’s comprehension
• Children participate in lessons using active learning tools to be successful readers e.g. saying the word, stretching the word, segmenting, using robot arms to sound talk and using phoneme fingers to count the sounds; this enables all children to maintain involvement and enjoyment
• Repetition and reinforcement of learning is key, repeating sounds, practising phrases and structures and applying these in their reading and writing
• Children are encouraged to write a phrase and or sentence from the teacher’s dictation using their knowledge of GPCs and the graphemes taught during this phonics lesson
• All ELS lessons start with reviewing prior knowledge of the pure sounds taught and previous harder to read and spell words. Not all sounds are necessarily revised, just those that require reinforcing. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to consolidate understanding of previously taught phonemes.
• At the beginning of each term a review week ensures what has been taught the previous term is reviewed. This enables any misconceptions to be addressed and phonic knowledge to be mastered before moving on.

Foundations for Phonics in Nursery

We start teaching phonics in Nursery and follow the Essential Letters and Sounds progression, which ensures children to build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code.  In Nursery, early language development and exploration of sounds is key to developing children’s learning behaviours for ELS and ensuring these are embedded.  We explore Phase 1 phonics which focuses on tuning into sounds, listening, remembering and talking about sounds across seven aspects:

• Environmental Sounds
• Instrumental sounds
• Body percussion
• Rhythm and rhyme
• Alliteration
• Voice sounds
• Oral blending

Daily phonics lessons in Reception

In Reception, in Week 3 of the Autumn term, once all children have joined, we teach discrete, whole class phonics lessons for 30 minutes a day. In addition, as part of our provision there are daily oral blending games recapping on Phase 1.

Harder to Read and Spell Words: Children are taught the ‘Harder to Read and Spell words’ – words which do not follow the regular phonetic pattern and are an exception to the phonetic code. HRSW words are common in the English language, and it is important that children can read and spell them.  When teaching a new HRSW within ELS, we always identify the graphemes (letters which represent the sound) within the word that makes it harder to read and spell e.g. they (ey is tricky).  Children will practise reading and writing sentences and captions involving these HRSW and words with the focus sound.  In addition to this, children are taught High Frequency Words (HFW) which they will learn to read and spell.  By helping children to develop their knowledge of sight vocabulary they will be more confident in developing fluency in their reading and writing.

Daily phonics lessons in Year 1

Children continue daily Phonics lessons in Year 1 and further if needed through the school to ensure all children are confident, fluent readers.  In Year 1 children review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy. 

For those children who still struggle with phonics or decoding after year one, reading interventions are in place to ensure the children catch up as quickly as possible. 

Whole Class Reading

Children develop their comprehension skills through whole class reading lessons, and exploring their class text and a range of non-fiction texts. Through carefully planned discussions and questioning, the children gain a deeper understanding of the book and to develop oracy through talk. In year 2 children begin to respond to these questions in writing.

To continue this love of reading at home The Reading Eggs programme is used throughout the school. It is an engaging, research-based literacy programme designed to help young children learn to read through interactive lessons, games, and activities. It builds essential reading skills such as phonics, sight words, spelling, and comprehension in a fun, motivating way that keeps learners interested and confident. Reading Eggs adapts to each child’s level, allowing them to progress at their own pace while receiving instant feedback and rewards that encourage regular practice. Its benefits include improved reading fluency, stronger vocabulary development, increased confidence in reading, and greater enjoyment of learning, making it an effective tool for supporting early literacy both at school and at home.

Teaching Words of the Week that are directly linked to the class reading book strongly supports children’s language development by helping them make meaningful connections between new vocabulary and real contexts. When children encounter new words repeatedly through reading, discussion, and activities, they are more likely to understand their meanings, remember them, and use them confidently in their own speaking and writing. Linking vocabulary to a shared text also deepens comprehension, as children can see how words are used in sentences, explore their meanings, and discuss them with peers. This approach enriches vocabulary, strengthens oral language skills, and supports overall literacy development by making new language purposeful, relevant, and engaging.

In EYFS & KS1 we ensure we have a daily class story time. Daily story time offers many benefits for children’s learning and development, particularly in building language and literacy skills. Listening to stories each day helps children expand their vocabulary, improve their understanding of sentence structure, and develop strong listening and comprehension skills. Storytime also fosters imagination, creativity, and a love of reading by exposing children to a wide range of ideas, characters, and experiences. In addition, shared story time supports social and emotional development, as children learn to express feelings, understand others’ perspectives, and engage in meaningful discussions, making it a valuable and enjoyable part of the daily routine.

In addition to phonics lessons, children develop prosody (teaching children to read with understanding and expression), decoding and comprehension through 1:1 reading with an adult. Some targetted pupils read daily 1:1 with a trained adult.

Through half termly assessments using phonics tracker the children may attend 1:1 interventions delivered by a trained adult. Children’s gaps are identified and they will either attend oral blending, GPC recognition or blending for reading interventions.

We know communication and language is an essential part of early reading, so where necessary children may attend speech link or language link interventions which will make decoding and comprehension more accesible.