Teaching Reading 
Acquiring reading skills is an essential part of children’s learning as it provides them with a greater understanding of the world, through the development of language, word reading, comprehension and communication.
At Danecourt School we believe that reading is a journey, and that all children are at different points depending on their individual needs and abilities. We believe it is essential that we teach reading at a level that is appropriate to the learning styles and needs of each child, and matches the point where each child is on their reading journey and therefore we understood reading in its broadest sense.
Pupils are carefully assessed in their symbolic development which means that we assess their ability to acquire meaning from visual stimulus within their environment starting with objects and moving through photographs, symbols to the written word. Their level of symbolic understanding then directs their mode of communication, both receptive and expressive and this is incorporated and taught throughout their curriculum.
Many of our pupils are at early stages of reading development and will have opportunities to develop their early attention and concentration through visual, auditory and tactile (multi-sensory) activities.
Pupils are encouraged to develop book reading behaviours such as learning to turn pages from right to left, looking at the front and back of a book and taking an interest in choosing their favourite book or story. Pupils will have regular reading activities with staff where they share a book, and this may be a personalised book or a book without words and where they are listening to an adult describe pictures, often of places and events that are familiar to them. This also supports pupils to connect nouns (names) and verbs (doing words) and adjectives (descriptive words) to pictures. Soon through repetition pupil’s may begin to pick up on frequently seen, familiar words and recognise and say these out loud.
When pupils are beginning to recognise that print is a means of providing meaning they are ready to move into the formal teaching of reading. Little Wandle is the systematic synthetic programme that we use for the teaching of phonics. This programme provides a specific SEND pathway for the teaching of phonics with materials to support both teachers and parents. Pupil’s progress in phonics is carefully tracked and monitored and for some pupils it may be that another approach to the teaching of reading is required, for example, learning to read using a sight word method.