In the Foundation Stage and throughout the school, reading runs hand in hand with each child's phonic ability. Every book is carefully matched to the child's individual phonic knowledge. These have been colour banded into specific phonic phases. We ensure that the children know the appropriate letter sounds before moving onto the next block of books within each colour band. If you would like more information on this please ask to see your child's individual reading record.

We teach reading by learning the phonetic sound for each letter shape. We then use the letters learnt to sound out and blend vc* and cvc** words. As your child progresses we begin to look at cvcc*** and ccvc**** words. Alongside the teaching of sounding and blending we also teach the children to read 'tricky' words. These are words that cannot be sounded out and need to be read 'on-sight'.

At Springhead Primary School we have adopted a multi-scheme approach to reading to allow children to develop the confidence that they can read any book. The reading schemes that we have in school are as follows, 

Jelly and Bean   Song Birds    Bug Club    Oxford Reading Tree   Collins Big Cat   Rising Stars

* vowel consonant   **consonant vowel consonant   ***consonant vowel consonant consonant    ****consonant consonant vowel consonant