Learning to Read

Children at Castle View Primary School will develop their understanding of the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes). This relationship is known as a Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence (GPC). Children will develop their phonetic decoding skills (segmenting and blending) as well as developing their fluency and accuracy when reading. Children will receive targeted support in their daily Phonics lessons, in line with their individual SEND, EAL or additional needs.

Children at Castle View Primary School will begin to develop a love for storytelling and reading from the start of their journey in our EYFS classroom. They will be exposed to a wide-ranging variety of language-rich, engaging and inspiring texts. Children will have opportunities to explore and engage with a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts and will learn how to interpret these texts supporting their reading comprehension skills. Reading for pleasure is an essential component of children’s early reading development and will be supported and nurtured at Castle View Primary School.

Children and their parents/carers will be supported in their home learning journey by receiving tailored feedback regarding individual children’s phonics progress and specific feedback about next steps for individual children to develop their early reading skills. Parents and carers will have opportunities to engage with school reading events.

Essential Letters and Sounds

At Castle View Primary School, we follow the Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) scheme.

ELS is a systematic synthetic phonics programme that has been accredited by the Department for Education. Here you can find more information on what ELS is and how you can support your child at home: https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/essential-letters-and-sounds/

Phonics Sound Mats

Phoneme Pronunciation Guides

Oxford Owl eBook Library

Your child has access to hundreds of free eBooks via the Oxford Owl online library collection. You can find their login information on the inside cover of their reading record.

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/login?active-tab=students