Reading

Intention

Our curriculum intent for reading is to provide excellent opportunities for all pupils to improve their reading skills to the best of their ability. We will endeavour to ensure that all children to read fluently by the end of KS1 and further develop their confidence, speed and comprehension by the end of their primary education. We value reading as a key life skill and see a great importance in children developing a love of reading, which in turn supports their breadth of vocabulary. Ensuring that the statutory requirement of the National Curriculum is met, pupils will develop their skills in word reading and comprehension by both listening and reading texts. Reading is the key to accessing all other subjects across the curriculum.

The aims for reading are:

• To develop early readers’ phonetical knowledge in the early teaching of reading
• Creating a reading culture where children are exposed to a range of high-quality texts and have easy access to a wide range of different literary genres
• To provide children with explicit comprehension skills and enhanced vocabulary.

In Practice

EYFS and KS1

In EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 phonics is taught using the ‘Little Wandle’ programme, this is our systematic, synthetic phonics programme to teach early reading and spelling. Daily phonics sessions teach pupils how to segment and blend using their phonic knowledge this is then consolidated during reading sessions. Teachers ensure that pupils’ reading books match the relevant sounds and reading sessions take place three times a week in a small group with a trained adult. The first time we work on decoding (sounding out) the words, the second time we work on prosody which is reading with expression – making the book sound more interesting with our storyteller voice or our David Attenborough voice – and the third time we look at comprehension. We read the books three times at school because we want to develop fluency and understanding. Pupils then take their book home to read to their parent or carer. Children who require additional reading support are picked up for our daily keep up sessions or rapid catch up.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/engaging-parents/

Stories are regularly read to children so that they develop a joy of reading; a wider vocabulary and experience a range of genres and texts beyond what they can read themselves. Storytime is planned and delivered carefully on a daily basis, to enhance the exposure to different text types and the children visit the library each week to borrow a book. Some children are also coached by a KS2 ‘Reading Buddy’ to develop their fluency. The aim is that all children are able to read fluently by the end of year 1.

Children are also introduced to new vocabulary, and this is planned over each term.

Year 3 and 4

In lower KS2, the ‘Little Wandle’ programme is continued to be used as an intervention for those children who require consolidation and have regular rapid catch up sessions delivered by a trained adult. As the children become confident and fluent readers, comprehension  is more focused in reading. VIPERS, an acronym for reading skills, are used to develop the children's’ comprehension skills. VIPERs provides support for the development of vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising/sequencing. These comprehension skills are taught as whole-class reading lessons and through guided reading groups. The children also access on line reading texts through 'Serial Mash' an online library which includes activities to build comprehension skills.

Children continue to read age related colour-banded books independently and we encourage the children to read at home several times per week with a parent or carer at home. This is checked weekly by teachers to monitor reading activity at home.  A regular assessment can be made of the children’s book banding level, if required. Children who require additional support for fluency continue to benefit from regularly reading on a 1 to 1 basis. A class novel is selected according to the topic, where possible. Story time continues to be time-tabled daily so that children's’ imaginations and language is developed and that they experience a range of genres and texts beyond what they can read themselves. The children also visit our school library regularly to borrow books.

Years 5 and 6

As children’s reading becomes more fluent in KS2, the focus on developing comprehension skills increases. These are taught through whole class sessions, using the VIPERS skills and through regular sessions of Reading Plus. Vulnerable readers continue to benefit from smaller group or 1:1 reading sessions to build up independence, vocabulary and core reading skills. In Years 5 and 6, children use the Reading Plus Programme which has a range of online texts designed to check comprehension skills via a series of tasks and quizzes. Children have access to this both in school and at home via a protected password and they can compete against themselves; their peers and other schools to increase their reading speed, fluency and comprehension. Reading Plus is also differentiated to each child according to an initial assessment at the start of each year; therefore, children can select texts that are of interest to them and complete comprehension lessons that are specific to their reading ability. Pupils’ aspirations are set high, and they receive regular extrinsic rewards to encourage, motivate and recognise achievement. Although Reading Plus is the main scheme for reading in Year 5 and 6, VIPERS is still used as a comprehension tool when teaching whole-class reading. Class novels are further read in Upper Key Stage 2, exposing the children to different areas of the curriculum, authors and their writing styles.                                                                                                       

 https:www.readingplus.com/

Outcome

Reading is a high priority at Ling Bob School and our aim is for every child to read fluently by the end of Year 2. Children will develop a love of reading, read widely and develop specific interests in certain types of books, genres, styles of writing and authors. In addition to this, we aim for the percentage of pupils working at age related expectations and above at the end of Key Stage 2 to be in line with national averages and match the ambitious targets school set for individual pupils.

Phonics Overview: 

Reading Overview:

Library Before, During and After Photos

School Council's visit to 'The Thoughtful Spot'

Book Week 2022