English – Reading
English Subject Leader – Mrs Munro
English Curriculum
English – Reading
Phonics Curriculum Intent
For all of our children to be fluent, confident readers and apply the sounds taught (through Supersonic Phonic Friends) to all aspects of their learning so they become highly-skilled readers.
Phonics is taught using Supersonic Phonic Friends. Supersonic Phonic Friends aims to build children’s speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. It is a fully systematic, synthetic programme for teaching phonic skills.
Reading Curriculum Intent
For all of our children to develop a love of reading across all aspects of the curriculum, by learning and applying skills through our VIPERS approach (Vocabulary, Inference, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Sequence/Summarise).
Reading
Our Reading Curriculum is planned and taught using our sequenced and progressive curriculum documents (which are based around the National Curriculum). The Early Learning Goals and Framework are used to ensure continuity and progression from Early Years through to the National Curriculum in Year 1.
Phonics is taught using Supersonic Phonic Friends. Supersonic Phonic Friends aims to build children’s speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. It is a fully systematic, synthetic programme for teaching phonic skills.
Supersonic Phonics Friends
Overview of Phase One – Phase Five
| Phase One (School Nursery) | This phase is split into seven aspects: Aspect 1: General Sound Discrimination – Environmental Sounds Aspect 2: General Sound Discrimination – Instrumental Sounds Aspect 3: General Sound Discrimination – Body Percussion Aspect 4: Rhythm and Rhyme Aspect 5: Alliteration Aspect 6: Voice Sounds Aspect 7: Oral Blending and Segmenting |
| Phase Two (Reception) | The purpose of this phase is to teach at least 19 letters, and move children on from oral blending and segmentation to blending and segmenting with letters. By the end of the phase many children should be able to read some VC and CVC words and to spell them either using magnetic letters or by writing the letters on paper or on whiteboards. During the phase they will be introduced to reading two-syllable words and simple captions. |
| Phase Three (Reception) | The purpose of this phase is to teach another 25 graphemes, most of them comprising two letters (e.g. oa), so the children can represent each of about 42 phonemes by a grapheme. Children also continue to practise CVC blending and segmentation in this phase and will apply their knowledge of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two-syllable words and captions. They will learn letter names during this phase, learn to read some more tricky words and also begin to learn to spell some of these words. |
| Phase Four (Reception) | No new grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught in this phase. The purpose of this phase is to consolidate children’s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words |
| Phase Five (Throughout Year 1) | The purpose of this phase is for children to broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes for use in reading and spelling. They will learn new graphemes and alternative pronunciations for these and graphemes they already know, where relevant. |
Phonics Sound Mats
Phase Two – Phase Five Tricky Words
Phonics Term by Term Expectations and Sequence
Phonic Pure Sounds
Please visit the Supersonic Phonic Friends – YouTube Channel for videos outlining how to pronounce the letter sounds correctly as pure sounds.
What are the VIPERS?
Reading Spine
Our Reading Spine is carefully designed to give children a rich and balanced reading diet across Years 1–6, blending fiction, nonfiction and poetry.
Class Novels
In every class, pupils listen to and discuss a daily class novel. Class novels are progressive across school and carefully selected to make connections to other areas of the curriculum and pupils’ ‘Personal Development’.
Home Readers
A high-quality home reading book is sent home weekly. In Early Years and Key Stage 1, Big Cat Collins is used and Rising Stars is used in Key Stage 2. These schemes ensure books are matched to pupils’ reading ability. Pupils are assessed on their fluency and understanding of the text, through one-to-one or small group reading, before the book is changed. In Early Years and Key Stage 1, pupils are also assessed on their ‘Tricky Words’.
Decodable Reading Scheme
Progression of Skills
Programmes of Study
SMSC in the English Curriculum
These documents are correct as of September 2025. We continually review the finer details of the curriculum content to ensure it meets the needs of our pupils. As a result, these ongoing small changes may not be reflected in the above documents.
