Phonics and Reading
Phonics
At Beechwood, children learn to read and write through phonics. All of our pupils in Nursery, Reception and Year 1 have a daily "Letters and Sounds" lesson. The children are grouped according to their learning needs and sessions are planned to meet these needs. 'Jolly Phonics' songs and actions are used to learn new phonemes and we teach handwriting outside of the phonics session.
If you would like to learn more about how we teach phonics, please speak to your class teacher who will be happy to share some more information with you.
We use some of these websites with the children. Why not take a look and play along at home?
Pupils in Years 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 investigate spelling patterns and rules in addition to their daily English lessons.
Reading
In Reception and Year One we use a variety of published reading schemes to support the teaching of reading at Beechwood, including Oxford Reading Tree, PM, Collins and Rigby. This allows each child to experience a variety of reading books on their journey to developing a love of reading. Children are encouraged to change their own reading books from a given selection to foster a love of reading and to develop their own tastes in books and genres.
From Year Two to Year Six, the children use a reading programme called Accelerated Reader (AR). Each child undertakes a STAR reader assessment which gives them a ZPD score. They can then choose books within their ZPD range to take home and read. After reading each book, there is a AR quiz to complete, with questions from the book. This programme is designed to motivate and encourage children to read more and also gives teachers feedback on their reading so that targets can be set.
We encourage all parents to get involved in their child's reading and ask that children are read with at least three times a week.