Reading:
Intent: What do we intend the children to learn through our reading curriculum?
We value reading as a fundamental life skill and we are dedicated to ensuring that all of our children develop a strong command of spoken language, alongside a lifelong love and passion for reading by exposing them to a wide-range of high-quality genres and authors. We believe that reading contributes to the whole school curriculum and is key to academic success.
The national curriculum for reading aims to ensure that all pupils:
- read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
The children in our school will be taught in a safe, secure and stimulating environment enabling them all to flourish as readers. The teaching of reading in our school is coherently planned through the use of our systemic, synthetic phonics programme from the start (Little Wandle – Letters and Sounds Revised). Comprehension skills are developed through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction texts. All pupils are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world they live in, to establish an appreciation and love of reading and to gain knowledge across the curriculum. Reading widely enables pupils to develop their vocabulary, imagination and curiosity. We support the individual learning journeys of all children, through a continuous cycle of planning, teaching and assessment to ensure that by the time our children leave us, they are competent and confident readers, ready for the next stage in their life.
Implementation: How is the reading curriculum delivered across the school to ensure we meet our intentions?
All members of our teaching team are well trained to deliver: high-quality phonics sessions, guided and whole-class reading sessions, one-to-one reading sessions, shared reading sessions and interventions/catch-up where necessary. They respond and adapt teaching to ensure children are stretched and challenged and to identify those children who may require additional support. Our school houses high-quality texts and reading resources in a range of settings to ensure children have the resources and opportunities to apply and develop their reading skills.
New learning is built upon prior knowledge, which is revisited regularly (within phonics and reading lessons). In the Early Years and Key Stage 1 (Year 1), reading skills are taught during weekly reading group sessions. These sessions follow the following order:
- Reading for fluency
- Prosody
- Comprehension
In Key Stage 2, reading skills are taught during weekly reading lessons and where appropriate, reading strands are broken down into learning journeys which provide the following:
- New learning that gives clear definitions and learning objectives
- Opportunities to listen to the adult model effective reading (fluency and prosody)
- Opportunities to practice and apply the modelled reading independently and with a partner
- A range of consolidation activities that give opportunities for the learners to be exposed to different question types (where appropriate)
- Opportunities for children to interact with the taught vocabulary
- Progressive and varied learning opportunities
- Differentiated tasks with appropriate scaffolding
- Guided/independent learning activities and opportunities
Regular assessment of reading allows staff to pinpoint gaps and address these as needed. We use the Little Wandle half termly assessments and the termly Lexplore Reading Analytics to assess reading, alongside teacher judgements. Where gaps have been identified, we implement a catch-up or keep up plan to ensure children do not fall behind or catch-up rapidly.
A love of reading is promoted across the school in all areas of the curriculum as well as during extra-curricular time. Each classroom has a reading area, that is looked after and enjoyed by the adults and children. We have a range of quality books on offer for the children to enjoy in these areas. The children also have access to our school library books and the library van, which visits us bi-weekly in Key Stage 2. Class texts are often wrapped as surprise gifts at the beginning of each half term, to develop a sense of excitement around the new book. The staff also share books for pleasure with the children at the end of each day, where further discussions can be had and a love for books nurtured.
Impact: How do we know the children have learnt what we intended?
Through the teaching of systemic, synthetic phonics, our children become fluent readers by the end of Year 1. This is evidenced through our phonics screening results in which our children always achieve very well in. From this, our children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. However, we firmly believe that reading is key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments. We promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading curriculum. Children speak positively about reading and enjoy reading as part of their daily lives. They relish in the idea of exploring a new book together or independently and understand the importance of reading as a lifelong skill.
