At Kingswood Primary School we are dedicated to delivering an exciting, engaging reading curriculum which enables children to become articulate speakers, inspired writers and avid readers. We strive to immerse all of our learners in language-rich environments, using high-quality class texts for reading and writing stimuli, actively increasing the opportunities for oracy within the classroom, and by providing a rich, creative and immersive language experience across the curriculum by interweaving our English curriculum with our wider curriculum subjects.

Reading is taught through daily Little Wandle phonics sessions in Reception and KS1, or in whole class reading sessions in KS2. 

Our Little Wandle mission is to ensure that every child is supported to learn to read and love it.

Phonics 

In January 2025, we started using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP). This is a fully comprehensive programme where children start learning single letter sounds in the Autumn Term of their Reception year and it builds in progression throughout Reception and Year One, preparing children for the statutory phonics screening that takes place at the end of year one. By the end of Key Stage One, the programme should ensure that all children have developed fluent word reading skills and have good foundations in spelling. 

Phonics is taught every day and children learn to apply their phonics skills in reading practise sessions at least 3 times a week, developing their fluency and comprehension skills along the way. Each of these sessions have a different focus:

Session 1 is focused on decoding and understanding the meaning of new words.

Session 2 is focused on prosody (expressive reading for meaning).

Session 3 is focused on comprehension.

After these reading sessions, children will bring home the book that they have been reading, along with a 'pleasure for reading' book.

For more parent information, please click on the link below.

For parents | Letters and Sounds

Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

In 2011-2012 the government introduced the statutory checking of phonics for Year One children. The Year One Phonics Screening Check is a national check of children’s phonic knowledge that all children in England are required to complete. The check comprises of a mixture of real and nonsense words which children have to decode/read. The check takes place at the end of Year One. An example of the check published by the Department for Education can be viewed here: media.education.gov.uk/phonics.pdf

Year 2 Spelling

All spelling lessons follow the familiar structure of Little Wandle phonics lessons, supporting children to make links to their phonics learning. Lessons build on prior knowledge to ensure children always start from a point of secure understanding.

Key Stage 2 Reading

Once children are able to sufficiently decode tricky words and read fluently, they will focus on reading comprehension skills. In Key Stage two, we use the VIPERS skills alongside the National Curriculum objectives to structure our reading curriculum.  

Over the course of a week:

• Children will have daily reading comprehension lessons based around one extract from a text.
• Each lesson will focus on one or two of the national curriculum skills relevant to that year group.
• Lesson one will focus mainly on vocabulary and the understanding of a text, whilst lessons two and three will focus on one or two of the VIPERS skills / curriculum objectives.
• Throughout a short term, children will cover all of the VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise) skills, with vocabulary and inference covered weekly.