Roots

Beginners' literacy programme – 'Roots'

This beginners' literacy programme is aimed at pupils achieving English National Curriculum reading and writing at Level 2c and below, or Welsh Foundation Phase Outcomes 1-6.

The Roots programme will help you get your pupils off to a successful start with reading and writing. It will build upon their existing knowledge of synthetic phonics from Reception, but will also help them develop a significant vocabulary of words they recognise by sight.

Best of all, it will encourage a love of reading, since Roots uses a rich variety of teacher-read books.

Our comprehensive materials, including lesson plans, save you time so that you can focus on bringing the activities to life and enthusing your pupils.

Key features

• Pupils will be assessed and regrouped according to their reading level every eight weeks – this ensures they are always taught at the right level and can see their own development.
• There is a strong focus on phonemic awareness, speaking and listening, comprehension, and text level skills.
• You will receive a comprehensive teacher's guide, which includes daily lesson plans with structures, activities and sample questions.
• Roots has been successfully used as a Wave 2 / Wave 3 intervention programme with Key Stage 2 children.

How Roots is structured

Roots' daily programme is built around four basic components:

1. FastTrack Phonics
   You will build your pupils' phonemic awareness by using colourful mnemonic pictures, integrated with alliterative phrases, sounds, and letter cues. Fun elements, such as games, ensure it remains enjoyable, as the fast-paced systematic instruction reviews and introduces sounds and their written representations.
2. Shared Stories
   You will use vibrant storybooks to engage your pupils in practicing their decoding, fluency, and comprehension skills. You will introduce new vocabulary then guide your pupils as they decode the story with their partners. You will also lead whole-class discussions that encourage higher-level thinking skills. These will stimulate your pupils' oral language and cognitive development, as they become confident, enthusiastic readers.
3. Story Telling and Retelling (STaR)
   We provide a collection of 48 books, both fiction and non-fiction. You will read these interactively with your pupils as part of daily lessons. Using partner talk and response, you will start to develop your pupils' early skills of predicting, clarifying and questioning, to support the development of effective reading strategies.
4. Writing
   In addition to a daily supported short writing task, in every third lesson you will guide your pupils through a longer writing activity that is related to the theme of both the Shared Story and STaR books. Your pupils will think, speak, and work collaboratively with others as they go through the writing process.