Early Reading and Phonics

If you have any questions regarding our Early Reading curriculum please speak to Katie Smith on 01296 488331 or email katie.smith@bcsglt.co.uk

Intent

At Bearbrook Combined School we strive to ensure that all children become confident, successful and fluent readers and writers by the end of KS1. In order to do this we provide every child with high quality Phonics as this plays a key role in developing children’s word decoding skills. We use the Rocket Phonics programme to teach our children Phonics as this is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme which ensures children gain a vast knowledge of the alphabetic code, along with teaching the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling. We believe that the Rocket Phonics programme provides the foundations of learning to ensure all children regardless of their backgrounds, needs or abilities become fluent readers and writers. The teaching of Phonics at Bearbrook has a high priority throughout Foundation Stage and KS1. Our programme is delivered consistently throughout the school by highly trained staff who know the needs of all their children due to the half termly assessments that take place. All children are closely monitored so that any children who are struggling or who have gaps or misconceptions are identified early and additional support put in place. Our aim is that our vigorous Phonics programme is also continued into KS2 and used by all staff to support children who need to build on their Phonics knowledge.