Phonics and Reading - Bug Club

Reading 

At Brooke School, we recognise that reading is crucial and fundamental to the educational success of our learners. It provides an opportunity to develop a rich vocabulary, influence high quality writing and also provides a gateway to success in other subjects. But more than this, we want our learners to also develop a love of reading that will open their minds to a world of adventures and opportunities. We aim to develop their reading skills and provide opportunities that will take them beyond their day to day life experiences, developing a sense of curiosity and understanding of the world. 

Reading is central to day to day life in our school. Learners are read to as a whole class daily, read in groups, read individually to an adult and read independently. Learners are matched to a reading band based on their reading age assessment and Phonics assessment. In class learners read individual and guided reading Bug club books matched to their reading band. Bug club reading books or reading activities are sent home every week. Bug club books are also available as tablet-friendly eBooks that can be accessed from home and includes audio narration to help with pronunciation. 

Each learner has a unique homepage and can log into it by following these steps: 

1. Go to www.activelearnprimary.co.uk. 

2. Entre the login details (provided by the class teacher). 

3. Your learners homepage will appear. 

Pre-phonics 

Before learners begin to recognise letters and sounds that they make, we develop attention and listening skills, early social communication and sound discrimination skills using musical instruments, listening games, rhythm and nursery rhymes. 

We also teach learners how to interact with books and stories e.g. turning pages, expressing a preference for a text and listening to an adult read a story. 

Once learners are ready, we begin to learn about letter sounds in a fun and interactive way. Learners will play games where they practice their listening skills and tuning into words that have the same initial sound and will begin to match these sounds to a written letter.

Phonics

Our learners journey to become fluent, independent readers starts with Phonics. At Brooke School, we use the Pearson Phonics Bug Club Programme to help learners learn to read. The programme follows an approach of synthesising phonemes associated with graphemes a child sees; or put another way, learning to read by blending the sounds associated with the letters a child sees. The programme is the product of extensive research on effective ways to teach children how to read. 

Learners are taught a daily structured, systematic phonics session, following the Phonics Bug club scheme. this is a DfE approved scheme and our school has complete fidelity to it. Daily sessions follow the same structure: 

• Revisit and review - learners recap prior learning 
• Teach - learners learn a new grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound) correspondence
• Practise - learners consolidate new learning 
• Apply - learners apply new learning into a writing or reading context to strengthen their understanding 

Grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound) correspondence for reading and spelling are taught in a specified order. 'Tricky words' that cannot be decoded using phonics are also taught systematically through out. 

Learners are assessed regularly to ensure that any learners experiencing difficulties are identified quickly and appropriate support can be put in place in a timely manner. 

For more information on Phonics, how it helps learners to learn to read and how you can support your learner at home, please click on the links and watch the video below. 

Our new Library!

Useful documents

Letters

Games and activities