Chatsworth Infant School

Foundation and Key Stage 1 classes enjoy and participate in story time sessions daily.  Teachers regularly share a range of narrative and non-narrative texts with the whole class. Each class has an engaging, organised book corner which they use throughout the week. 

Guided reading sessions take place for 20-30 minutes each day.  Pupils read with the teacher in a guided group session once a week.  The group will be given a follow up activity linked to the guided group text during the next couple of days.  Other activities the groups will take part in during a week include; silent, independent reading, phonics and comprehension.  Children who require additional support with reading will receive more regular opportunities to read with an adult.

As part of home reading, children should be selecting and reading a book appropriate to their level 3 times a week.  We encourage parents/carers to hear their child read unless they are at a level where the pupils can assess their own reading.  Feedback on home reading is made by parents/carers or pupils within the Home Reading Records. It is important that children are encouraged and supported with their reading and are choosing books that are age appropriate.

At Chatsworth Infant School we strongly believe that the more experiences children have the better writers they become. We therefore place a strong emphasis on bringing drama and role play into our lessons, allowing the children to recreate those fantasy worlds that they so often read about.  Hotseating, teacher in role and freeze frames are just some examples of the types of activities your children will experience through our diverse English curriculum.

At Chatsworth and Burnt Oak, we understand the relationship between the sounds of spoken language, and the letters and graphemes of written language. We use phonics as the first strategy to help children learn to read. We learn that phonemes are ‘a sound’ and that graphemes are ‘a sound written down’. Research shows that teaching Phonics in a structured and systematic way is the most effective way of teaching young children to read.  Almost all children who receive good teaching of Phonics will learn the skills they need to decipher new and unfamiliar words.

At Chatsworth Infant School, Phonics in the Early Years is taught on a daily basis and follows the DFE accredited Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Rivised programme. Children are taught the skills for segmenting and blending words and are introduced to new phonemes as part of a systematic synthetic approach. 

The teaching of Phonics begins in Nursery and continues in Reception, Year 1 and 2 as children are introduced to alternative graphemes, letter known sounds and begin to learn some of the more complicated spelling rules. At the end of Year 1 children are required to sit the Phonics Screening Check to assess their ability to segment and blend words. Children are presented with 40 words – a mixture of real and pseudo words and they are expected to apply their Phonics knowledge to read the words. If children are unsuccessful in Year 1, they have the opportunity to retake the test in Year 2. Intervention groups are set up for those children requiring additional support with their Phonics learning and this additional support will continue in Key Stage 2 if necessary.

A good spelling programme gradually builds pupils’ spelling vocabulary therefore, when children enter Year 2 they will have daily CUSP spelling lessons.