At Marshgate Primary School we believe that reading is an essential life skill.

We are committed to enabling our pupils to become confident, lifelong readers.

Our teaching of synthetic phonics, using Read Write Inc Phonics, ensures the children’s enthusiastic participation and engagement, resulting in robust phonics learning on a daily basis. Our aim is to equip our pupils with a secure understanding of the letter sounds and the spelling system of the English language. In Reception and Year One the children learn the 40+ phonemes, including the alternative pronunciations.

Phoneme–grapheme correspondence is taught daily; pupils learn to use the correct letter formation when writing.  We teach the different methods for sounding out (decoding) words for reading and segmenting (encoding) words for spelling. The Read Write Inc decodable books, both fiction and factual, provide cumulative steps so that pupils learn to accurately read aloud from books that are consistent with their developing phonics knowledge. Pupils are systematically taught to read and write the common exception words.

During daily phonics sessions there are opportunities to regularly assess children’s understanding. In addition, pupils demonstrate their phonics knowledge in the wide range of class reading and writing activities. Through regular monitoring we ensure that all children are making expected progress; by the end of Key Stage 1 children develop fluent word reading skills and good foundations in spelling. Phonics teaching continues after Year One for those who need reading and spelling support, particularly for pupils who are new to the English education system or whose first language is not English.

 In the Summer term, all Year One pupils take part in the Statutory National Phonics Screening Programme.