Moving On

When the foundations of reading are secure, the way is open to learning through reading and enjoying everything that reading and writing bring to life.

At this stage, pupils can decode most written words and understand them in the context of age-appropriate literature and non-fiction. They can also write what they want to say in a way that others can read.

With a strong start, pupils’ word reading and spelling rapidly become more accurate and automatic. Then teachers can spend more time developing their reading comprehension and written composition. Teachers should continue to read aloud to pupils every day to increase their vocabulary, develop their language comprehension, broaden their knowledge and encourage them to read independently.

Pupils should read often: in English lessons and across the curriculum, to learn from their reading, to read for pleasure and for specific purposes, and – with practice – to become more fluent, since fluency is important for reading comprehension.

As their reading becomes more fluent, the need for a systematic phonics programme for reading reduces, although incidental phonics for reading unfamiliar words remains relevant.

Spelling, however, is more difficult than decoding, because there are many different words where the same sound is spelt in different ways. An effective spelling programme should continue to teach further correspondences between letters and sounds. For example, pupils might learn that /u/ is spelt with ‘ou’ in ‘young’, ‘touch’, ‘double’, ‘trouble’ and ‘country’. To help them to learn to spell the new words they meet across the curriculum, teachers can draw pupils’ attention to any unusual correspondences between spelling and sound. For example, in science, the teacher could draw attention briefly to how the word ‘circuit’ is pronounced, how the letters correspond to the sounds and the unusual spelling of ‘ui’ for /i/.

As they make progress with spelling, the emphasis moves to learning about morphemes, that is prefixes, suffixes and root words. For example, when pupils have learnt the prefix ‘inter–’, the suffix ‘–ion’ and the root word ‘act’, they can read and spell ‘interaction’. Knowing about morphemes helps with reading comprehension too. For example, the word ‘unreliable’ is made of the root word ‘rely’, the prefix ‘un’, meaning ‘not’, and the suffix ‘able’, meaning ‘able to be’, so ‘unreliable’ means ‘not able to be relied on’. There are several useful rules that should be taught; for example, when adding a suffix to a root word with a short vowel sound, followed by one consonant, that consonant is usually doubled, as in ‘running’.

When pupils can form letters correctly and easily, they should be taught how to join them and should practise their handwriting to increase its fluency, legibility and quality.

Grammar and punctuation become more important for teaching writing as pupils’ spelling and handwriting improve. Sentence dictation that includes the words pupils have been taught to spell is effective in helping them to consolidate spelling, handwriting and punctuation, without having to think about composition too. Understanding rules about punctuation and grammar helps with reading comprehension and prosody too.