Reading
At Herons’ Moor Academy, we believe every child deserves the opportunity to become a fluent, confident reader, as strong reading skills are the foundation for lifelong learning and future success. We nurture a love of reading by creating a rich reading culture, where adults model enthusiasm and enjoyment for books. Through access to a diverse range of high-quality texts, children are inspired to read for pleasure, broaden their horizons, and develop a lasting passion for literature.
To become successful readers, children develop five essential reading skills:
- Phonemic Awareness – recognising and working with the individual sounds in spoken words.
- Phonics and Word Recognition – learning how letters and letter patterns represent sounds to help decode unfamiliar words.
- Fluency – reading accurately, smoothly and with expression to bring meaning to a text.
- Vocabulary – building an understanding of new words and their meanings to enrich language and knowledge.
- Comprehension – developing the ability to understand, interpret and think deeply about what has been read.
We use the Unlocking Letters and Sounds programme to deliver phonics. Unlocking Letters and Sounds was validated by the DfE in December 2021.
We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4.
In Year 1 through Phase 5a, b and c, the children learn any alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes and additional common exception Words. By the end of Year 1, children will have mastered using phonics to decode and blend when reading and segment when spelling. In Year 1 all children are screened using the national phonics screening check.
In Year 2, phonics continues to be revisited to ensure mastery of the phonetic code and any child who does not meet age related expectations will continue to receive support to close identified gaps.
To ensure no child is left behind at any point in the progression, children are regularly assessed and supported to keep up through bespoke 1-1 interventions. These include GPC recognition and blending and segmenting interventions. The lowest attaining 20% of pupils are closely monitored to ensure these interventions have impact.
Unlocking Letters and Sounds Progression
Click here to see an example of a phonics intervention
At Herons’ Moor Academy, we promote a ‘phonics first’ approach in both our guided reading sessions at school and in the books children take home, texts are very closely matched to a child’s current phonics knowledge so that every child can experience real success in their reading. From an early age, children are also given a book to read at home with their adults to enjoy delving into the world of stories together.
Once children progress beyond decodable texts, they move onto our book scheme so that they can continue to progress in their decoding, fluency and comprehension skills to become avid, expert readers.
Reading is at the heart of everything we do because we believe it is the gateway to learning. Strong reading skills enable children to access the full curriculum, develop their understanding of the world, and become confident, independent learners. By placing reading at the centre of school life, we ensure that every child has regular opportunities to develop both the skills and the enjoyment needed to become lifelong readers.
We foster a rich reading culture throughout the school. Every class enjoys a dedicated story time at the end of each day, allowing children to experience the pleasure of listening to high-quality texts and sharing a love of books together. In addition, all children take part in whole-class guided reading sessions, where they explore a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry while developing key skills such as fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
To further promote reading for pleasure, we run our popular Reading Buddy programme every other term. Children are paired with pupils from different year groups and classes to read together, building confidence, fostering positive relationships and creating a shared enthusiasm for books across the school community.
Through these opportunities and many other reading experiences woven throughout the curriculum, we aim to inspire every child to become a capable, enthusiastic reader who recognises the power and enjoyment that reading can bring.
