Reading and Phonics

What does reading look like at Dore Primary School?

Reading is a high priority at Dore Primary School, it is woven into every lesson. Children recognise that reading is essential in all that we do, whether we are choosing what to have from the lunch menu or pondering the morning maths challenge; our children are reading to understand the world around them.

Early Reading and Phonics

All children in Foundation Stage and KS1 have a daily phonics lesson. At Dore Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’, this is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme.

Click here to find out more about our phonics programme including videos demonstrating how we teach key elements of reading and information about books which children take home.

Click the links below for further information about Phonics and Early Reading at Dore Primary School:

Our Phonics, Early Reading and Reading Policy

Phonics Programme Overview for Reception and Year 1

Pronunciation guide 1, Pronunciation guide 2

Watch these videos to hear the correct pronunciation of the phonemes: Phase 2 (A), Phase 2 (B), Phase 3

Glossary

Reading Practice Sessions

As well as the daily phonics lesson, we teach children to read through reading practice sessions either in a group or 1:1 in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. These:

  • are taught by a fully trained adult familiar to your child (usually the class teacher or TA)
  • use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge.

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

    • decoding
    • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
    • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

In Year 3 and above, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Book Study

Children in KS2 benefit greatly from participating in Book Study. This is time for children to sit back and enjoy listening to a teacher read a rich and powerful text. Teachers are experts at reading these texts in a way to entice children into the story and leave them wanting more. Then together, as a class, children study and analyse snippets of the text, all learning and reflecting together.

Reading Spines

We love reading at Dore Primary and want all children to share in the fun, so we have handpicked 9 books for each year group. We call this our ‘Reading Spine’. We know sharing and discussing high-quality books binds our community together.

We have copies of the books for our year each year group in our reading corners. You may also want to enjoy them at home by purchasing them or borrowing them from a library. There is a picture of each book in each child’s Reading Log. Children can read the book at home or school and then rate each book. If your child reads one of them at school, it would be great if you could ask them some questions about the book.

Promoting a Love of Reading

We are passionate about promoting a love of reading at Dore Primary School. Here are just some of the extras we do to provide children with opportunities to enjoy reading:

  • Story time for all classes every day
  • World Book Day
  • Book Fairs
  • First News (newspaper) delivered to Y2 – Y6 classrooms
  • Access to our school library
  • Reading corners in every classroom
  • Story Sacks for Foundation Stage
  • Mystery Reader – parents invited in to share their favourite book

Statutory Phonics Screening Check Data

  • In 2022 95% of Y1s passed the phonic screening check and 97% of pupils had passed this check by the end of KS1.

 

ENGLISH – INTENT, IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPACT STATEMENTS:

Intent, Implementation and Impact in English

 

Reading News:

  • Poem fit for a king – Town Hall Celebration

    Dore Primary entered poems into the Schools Libray Service’s Poem fit for a king competition. And, thanks to the brilliant work of Iris and Hattie, we won! To celebrate, Iris and Hattie chose friends to accompany them on a a trip to Sheffield town hall for a writing and illustrating workshop with author of the … Read more
  • Y1 Virtual book event!

    Year 1 have been learning about Caryl Hart’s book ‘how to grow a dinosaur’. They were invited to a virtual book event about her new book ‘meet the weather’ They enjoyed reading, singing, drawing and getting a private tour around the illustrators studio!
  • Reading Challenges 2023

    We are starting to get some brillinat responses to our the 2023 Reading Challenges! Please encourage your child to complete as many challenges as possible. Put your initials next to a challenge when they omplete it. Please return the sheets to class teachers by Friday 9th June.  One child per class will have the chance … Read more
  • Y1 World Book Day

  • World Book Day at Dore Primary School 2023

    This year, World Book Day had a potato theme! Inspired by brilliant Books like Supertato and I am a Poetato the children all created a vegetable version of a character from one of their favourite books. We came together to share our favourites at he end of the day! A big thanks to The Village … Read more
  • FS2: World Potato…sorry Book Day

    We had a lovely World Book Day 2023 in FS2 today. It started off in the best way, with parents and family members coming in to read with their children and often others too! There was a lovely atmosphere in the base and lots of excellent books being enjoyed. During the morning the children had … Read more
  • Y4 World Book Day

    Y4 had a great time on World Book Day creating characters from our favourite books. This activity allowed us to have conversations about the characters we recreated, letting the rest of the class pick up some great book recommendations in the process.
  • Y3 – Science – Climate Change

    Some of the last learning Year 3 completed for their Pole to Pole topic was to understand climate change: What it is, How humans are causing it, The effects on the world’s biomes (espeically the polar region), What we can do about it. To do this, we: Used maps to understand what a geographical change … Read more
  • Y1 Writing

    Y1 have been learning about Aliens Love Underpants!
  • Y6 – Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize

    Year 6 pupils have been taking part in the Royal Society’s annual Young People’s Book Prize. Pupils on the judging panel read and reviewed 6 fantastic new Science-based non-fiction books scoring them for the following categories: interest, look and feel, ease of reading and inspiration. The results are in and the panel’s top-scoring book was … Read more
  • FS2 The Tomten and the Fox

    In outdoor learning this week, the children listened to the story of the Tomten and the Fox – a Scandinavian tale of a hungry fox in search of food in winter. Luckily for him, a kind Tomten (Scandinavian troll) who guards the farm at night was on watch and shared his bowl of warm porridge … Read more
  • Y4 Portal Stories

    Y4 have spent a great deal of care, time and effort creating these amazing stories. First we read about different examples of ‘portal story’, including The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Phantom Tollbooth. We worked out that mostly portal stories start with someone who isn’t happy with their everyday life (just like … Read more
  • Roving Bookshop at DPS – November 2022

    It was great to see all the children enjoying the range of texts available at the Roving Bookshop last week. Thanks to all the families who were able to make a purchase. The most important thing is getting children excited about books and reading. But it also helps generate commission, which this year we will … Read more
  • FS2 The Leaf Man

    This week we shared the story ‘The Leaf Man’ by Lois Elhert. It was a magical story which swept us outside among the trees as we hunted for leaves on our own school grounds. Using an identification sheet to help us, we found Sycamore, Beech, Birch, Horse and Sweet Chestnut leaves and ivy. Some of … Read more
  • Sheffield Children’s Book Award 2022

    It was a pleasure to take the Year 4s to the 2022 Sheffield Children’s Book Award. We had read the three entries in the ‘shorter novels’ section last year and voted for our favourite: I Lost my Granny in the Super Market by Jo Simmons had the vast majority of the votes from Y3H and … Read more
  • Y2 – History Van !

    Today, the history van paid us a visit and took us back to 1666, to learn all about the Great Fire of London! Mrs Pepys came to talk to us all about how the fire started, reasons it spread so quickly and the impact it had. The children took part in lots of hands on … Read more
  • Y4 SpiDOREwick Chronicles

    Y4 started the year by immersing ourselves into the magical world of The Spiderwick Chronicles. Through our reading, we discovered that it is possible to gain ‘The Sight’, allowing humans to see into the faerie world. This world contains all sorts of creatures, from fairies and pixies to trolls and boggarts. Once we had gained … Read more
  • Outdoor Learning with Miss Bradley

    This year the children in Foundation Stage will be learning outdoors with Miss Bradley. Each week there will be a different focus/theme where children will develop their kindness, creativity, resilience and resourcefulness. We kicked off the first week with parachute games, getting to know one another and sharing stories in the sunshine.
  • Reading for Pleasure Challenge Winners

    A huge well done to everyone who participated in our reading for pleasure challenges this half term, we were blown away by how much awesome reading took place across the school, and by how creative and resourceful the children have been in completing the different activities. From exciting new book covers, to whole stories written … Read more
  • English

    The children did a great job today as fantastic readers, spotting split digraphs in the text and working together to find answers in the text. They had to be really resilient. They also had great fun challenging each other on their tricky words.

Poem fit for a king – Town Hall Celebration

Dore Primary entered poems into the Schools Libray Service’s Poem fit for a king competition. And, thanks to the brilliant work of Iris and Hattie, we won! To celebrate, Iris and Hattie chose friends to accompany them on a a trip to Sheffield town hall for a writing and illustrating workshop with author of the … Read more

Y1 Virtual book event!

Year 1 have been learning about Caryl Hart’s book ‘how to grow a dinosaur’. They were invited to a virtual book event about her new book ‘meet the weather’ They enjoyed reading, singing, drawing and getting a private tour around the illustrators studio!

Reading Challenges 2023

We are starting to get some brillinat responses to our the 2023 Reading Challenges! Please encourage your child to complete as many challenges as possible. Put your initials next to a challenge when they omplete it. Please return the sheets to class teachers by Friday 9th June.  One child per class will have the chance … Read more

Y1 World Book Day

World Book Day at Dore Primary School 2023

This year, World Book Day had a potato theme! Inspired by brilliant Books like Supertato and I am a Poetato the children all created a vegetable version of a character from one of their favourite books. We came together to share our favourites at he end of the day! A big thanks to The Village … Read more

FS2: World Potato…sorry Book Day

We had a lovely World Book Day 2023 in FS2 today. It started off in the best way, with parents and family members coming in to read with their children and often others too! There was a lovely atmosphere in the base and lots of excellent books being enjoyed. During the morning the children had … Read more

Y4 World Book Day

Y4 had a great time on World Book Day creating characters from our favourite books. This activity allowed us to have conversations about the characters we recreated, letting the rest of the class pick up some great book recommendations in the process.

Y3 – Science – Climate Change

Some of the last learning Year 3 completed for their Pole to Pole topic was to understand climate change: What it is, How humans are causing it, The effects on the world’s biomes (espeically the polar region), What we can do about it. To do this, we: Used maps to understand what a geographical change … Read more

Y1 Writing

Y1 have been learning about Aliens Love Underpants!

Y6 – Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize

Year 6 pupils have been taking part in the Royal Society’s annual Young People’s Book Prize. Pupils on the judging panel read and reviewed 6 fantastic new Science-based non-fiction books scoring them for the following categories: interest, look and feel, ease of reading and inspiration. The results are in and the panel’s top-scoring book was … Read more

FS2 The Tomten and the Fox

In outdoor learning this week, the children listened to the story of the Tomten and the Fox – a Scandinavian tale of a hungry fox in search of food in winter. Luckily for him, a kind Tomten (Scandinavian troll) who guards the farm at night was on watch and shared his bowl of warm porridge … Read more

Y4 Portal Stories

Y4 have spent a great deal of care, time and effort creating these amazing stories. First we read about different examples of ‘portal story’, including The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Phantom Tollbooth. We worked out that mostly portal stories start with someone who isn’t happy with their everyday life (just like … Read more

Roving Bookshop at DPS – November 2022

It was great to see all the children enjoying the range of texts available at the Roving Bookshop last week. Thanks to all the families who were able to make a purchase. The most important thing is getting children excited about books and reading. But it also helps generate commission, which this year we will … Read more

FS2 The Leaf Man

This week we shared the story ‘The Leaf Man’ by Lois Elhert. It was a magical story which swept us outside among the trees as we hunted for leaves on our own school grounds. Using an identification sheet to help us, we found Sycamore, Beech, Birch, Horse and Sweet Chestnut leaves and ivy. Some of … Read more

Sheffield Children’s Book Award 2022

It was a pleasure to take the Year 4s to the 2022 Sheffield Children’s Book Award. We had read the three entries in the ‘shorter novels’ section last year and voted for our favourite: I Lost my Granny in the Super Market by Jo Simmons had the vast majority of the votes from Y3H and … Read more

Y2 – History Van !

Today, the history van paid us a visit and took us back to 1666, to learn all about the Great Fire of London! Mrs Pepys came to talk to us all about how the fire started, reasons it spread so quickly and the impact it had. The children took part in lots of hands on … Read more

Y4 SpiDOREwick Chronicles

Y4 started the year by immersing ourselves into the magical world of The Spiderwick Chronicles. Through our reading, we discovered that it is possible to gain ‘The Sight’, allowing humans to see into the faerie world. This world contains all sorts of creatures, from fairies and pixies to trolls and boggarts. Once we had gained … Read more

Outdoor Learning with Miss Bradley

This year the children in Foundation Stage will be learning outdoors with Miss Bradley. Each week there will be a different focus/theme where children will develop their kindness, creativity, resilience and resourcefulness. We kicked off the first week with parachute games, getting to know one another and sharing stories in the sunshine.

Reading for Pleasure Challenge Winners

A huge well done to everyone who participated in our reading for pleasure challenges this half term, we were blown away by how much awesome reading took place across the school, and by how creative and resourceful the children have been in completing the different activities. From exciting new book covers, to whole stories written … Read more

English

The children did a great job today as fantastic readers, spotting split digraphs in the text and working together to find answers in the text. They had to be really resilient. They also had great fun challenging each other on their tricky words.