Reading Interventions at Oak Cottage

At Oak Cottage, we recognise the fundamental importance of reading and literacy skills in a child's academic and personal development. To support children, who may require additional assistance in developing their phonics, reading fluency, and comprehension skills, we offer a variety of targeted reading intervention programs.

Phonics Intervention Program

All children are taught phonics using Twinkl Phonics. For those children, who require support with their phonics, following these sessions, we provide interventions to allow children to recap sounds and catch up. We understand at Oak Cottage that sometimes children require different methods for skills to be embedded so we tailor interventions to cater for the needs of the children. Based on individual reading levels and phonics knowledge, students work either 1:1 or in small groups with a trained teacher or teaching assistant to strengthen their phonics skills. We understand, as a school, that children still may require phonic support as they move into KS2 and provide phonics interventions, such as enhanced 1:1 interventions, phonic games and periodic assessments, in KS2, also for those who need them.

Book Bands

As a school, we have created coloured book bands which group together books that focus on particular sounds. They begin with sounds children learn in Reception (Phase 1) and then progress up to Phase 6.

In KS1, children’s reading is monitored each week and children are only allowed to progress to the next book band when the teacher or teaching assistant believes they are ready to progress. We have created our book bands using books from a range of schemes: Oxford Reading Tree, Project X, Songbirds among many others. This allows our children access to select a book from a greater range of books, while still ensure they focus on the phonics sounds they know.

In Key Stage 2, skills in reading are developed through the continued use of coloured banded texts into Year 3 and in later year groups if appropriate until they become ‘free readers’.

Reading records are used in both KS1 and KS2 to ensure teachers can monitor their reading.

1:1 Reading in all Year groups

As a school, we aim to ensure all children are heard read by an adult in school. We also ensure there is a focus on any child, who requires more support with their reading and provide 1:1 opportunities for these children each week. Our school offers 1:1 reading for a reading fluency intervention program for children in Year 3 and 4 who may require additional support in developing their reading fluency skills. In this program, students work with a suitable book matched to their reading level, read it under the guidance of a teacher or teaching assistant, and receive support in developing both their reading fluency and comprehension skills.

Comprehension Intervention for Year 4, 5 & 6

To support students in Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 in enhancing their comprehension skills, our intervention programs focus on different short texts. Carefully selected to match each student's reading level, these texts are used in targeted lessons, where students work with a teacher or teaching assistant to improve their comprehension skills.

In summary, our reading intervention programs are thoughtfully designed to support each child's unique needs in developing their reading skills.