Phonics & Early Reading

At Our Lady & St Patrick's, we implement a synthetic phonics approach, using the 'Success For All' Phonics Programme, created by the Fischer Family Trust.

'Success For All' Phonics:

• SFA Phonics is a programme for teaching reading, writing, speaking and listening, from Nursery onwards. It initially lays strong foundations in both oracy and literacy, starting with Nursery and Reception pupils and moving on to provide systematic teaching throughout the primary years and especially in Year 1, and into Year 2. Children work through the phonics phases systematically, from their entry to school.

• The SFA Phonics Programme is produced by the Fischer Family Trust and is  based on research, which has been proven to raise standards in reading and writing.

• SFA provides a wide range of opportunities for children to explore and develop phonic knowledge and comprehension strategies, develop vocabulary and spelling, improve grammatical awareness, analyse whole texts and develop writing in a wide range of genres.

• Typically, children will begin Phase 1 in Nursery and complete Phase 6 in Year 2. However, all children are different and not all children progress at the same rate through the phonics phases. We rigorously track children's progress in phonics, to ensure that all children make progress in reading and writing. We arrange early interventions for any children who need extra support in phonics.

• High quality daily phonics lessons in Early Years, through into Key Stage One and early Key Stage 2 are the fundamental basis for learning to read and write in a structured and systematic way. 

If you have any questions about phonics and early reading, your child's class teacher would be your first point of contact for advice. However, if you would like to discuss any aspect  in more detail, the subject leader is Miss Nicholson, who would be pleased to help.

The SfA scheme includes printed and online resources to cover:

• Early Years: 'First steps to Phonics' 
• Reception & Year 1: Phonics Programme 
• Year 2: 'Routes to Reading' and 'Spelling with the Jungle Club'
• Decodable Reading Books
• 'Reading Assessment Programme' aligned to the scheme
• Parents' Portal

Please click on the icons below for more information on Phonics & Early Reading at Our Lady & St Patrick's:

Other Phonics Information

Reading

Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum, and is given a high priority in all classes and year groups, right across school.

From children's very first days in school, we aim to foster a love of language and reading, and one of our key priorities is to enable all children to become fluent readers.
 

All class timetables include daily reading sessions for guided and individual reading, as well as opportunities for story time and quiet reading.

Independent reading takes place on a daily basis to encourage a love of books and reading for pleasure. Children are encouraged to talk about their favourite authors and recommend stories to others. Whole class reading sessions cover all the skills of prediction, clarification, questioning and summary as well as overall comprehension of a text.

Across school, children will experience a wide range of authors and text types and will regularly hear books being read to them. Our curriculum is planned with quality texts at its very heart and all our learning springs from this.

If you have any questions about reading, your child's class teacher would be your first point of contact for advice.  Alternatively, if you would like to discuss any aspect of reading in more detail, the subject leader for early reading is Miss Nicholson, and Miss Nattrass is the subject leader for reading in Key Stage 2.

At Our Lady & St Patrick's, reading is taught in line with the requirements of the National Curriculum Programmes of Study for Reading.

Our reading curriculum is also informed by the recommendations set out within the DfE's 'Reading Framework'.

Please click the links below to find out more about this:

Please click on the icons to find out more information about reading at Our Lady & St Patrick's

Our New School Library

In March 2023, we were delighted to officially open our brand new school library!

When we surveyed the children about attitudes to reading in 2021/22, they told us that they loved reading, but, in order to make reading at OLASP even better, they would really love a school library.

So, we saved our pennies and were able to purchase a custom-made reading pod, as our wonderful new school library. We know the children (and hopefully their parents) will enjoy this lovely new space for years to come!

Reading Club

We even have a 'Cosy Book Club' each lunch-time for those real book-worms, as well as an opportunity for every class to visit the local library each year, to sign up and enjoy access to so many wonderful books!

Every class visits our local library each year!

Our Reading Brochure - Information for Parents & Carers