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Uplands School

Uplands School
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Reading at Uplands

At Uplands School we promote a love of reading with a variety of reading material accessible in each classroom and in the school’s Learning Resource Centre.  As well as reading for pleasure and to support self-regulation, the development of reading knowledge and skills is essential to students’ functional skills; supporting both their independence and communication.  Reading is taught discretely with regular reading lessons throughout the week in every class, as well as embedded throughout the curriculum, both in school and more functionally around the school environment and in the local community.  This is also supported by the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).  Each student has personalised reading targets set termly (6 times a year) based on their 12 month EHCP short term outcome.  We promote reading through a variety of methods, for example, sensory stories, story massage, reading games and guided reading, as well as whole school celebrations such as World Book Day.

As a school we follow the systematic synthetic phonics programme ‘GES Simply Letters and Sounds’ which provides a framework for the teaching of phonics.  We utilise multisensory resources to support students’ access to this programme.

Phonics

Central to effective phonics teaching is the use of pure sounds; pronouncing the sounds correctly when blending to read words.  Please see the attached videos which can support you with this. 

Please also find below the progression of teaching tricky words that can't be sounded out that you may find useful:

Phase 2 Tricky Words - the, to, into, no, I go
Click below for the videos of pure sounds for this phase.

/i/video/Articulation-of-Phonemes-Phase-2.mp4

 

Phase Three Tricky Words - me, we, be, he, she, was, you, they, all, my, are, her 
Click below for the videos of pure sounds for this phase.

/i/video/Articulation-of-Phonemes-Phase-3.mp4

 

Phase Four Tricky Words - said, have, like, so, do, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what

No new phonemes are taught in Phase 4

Phase Five Tricky Words - oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called asked, water, where, who, again, thought, through, mouse
Click below for the videos of pure sounds for this phase

/i/video/Articulation-of-Phonemes-Phase-5.mp4