Reading
Vision
As a federation we strive to develop a love of reading through improving language and vocabulary, inspiring imagination and giving every child the opportunity to open up the treasure trove of wonder and joy found in books. We recognise the importance of reading in everyday life and aim to create fluent readers who are able to discuss a text confidently and with understanding.
Our Curriculum
Phonics curriculum - Read, Write, Inc
Curriculum Intent
We aim to provide children with a literacy-rich environment, high quality texts and inspiring learning opportunities, which will help them to:
- Gain a life-long enjoyment of reading and books;
- Read accurately, fluently and with understanding;
- Apply a knowledge of structured synthetic phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed;
- Be able to read with expression, clarity and confidence;
- Develop a good linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar;
- Read and respond to a wide range of different types of texts;
- Develop a deeper level of emotional intelligence and empathy;
The National Curriculum states that ‘A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development.’
Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum; we are committed to promoting a love for reading across all subjects and areas of both home and school life.
Curriculum Implementation
In our Nursery class, children have a variety of opportunities to develop their communication, language and literacy skills on a daily basis in both adult-led and child-initiated activities. Read, Write, Inc. synthetic phonics is also introduced during carpet sessions.
In our Reception class, children have daily Read, Write, Inc. sessions which begin with saying, reading and writing sounds and develops onto blending sounds to build words. As the year progresses, children are grouped according to their phonic need. Children also have opportunities to develop their communication, language and literacy skills on a daily basis in both adult-led and child-initiated activities. Children are given age and stage appropriate reading books to take home and share with their families.
In Key Stage 1, children are taught in small groups according to phonic need and ability using the Read, Write Inc. phonics programme. Children take part in reading sessions, which use high quality, well-chosen texts. In these sessions they are taught skills such as prediction, use of vocabulary and retrieval. Children are given age and stage appropriate books to take home and practise.
In Key Stage 2, children learn the skills they need for reading through reading sessions four times a week, where there is a sharp focus on reading skills.
These include:
- prediction
- vocabulary
- inference
- explanation
- retrieval
- summarising
The texts in our Reading curriculum have been carefully curated to ensure that they are appropriate for the age and development of the children who are using them. Teachers are constantly reviewing this curriculum, refining text choices to ensure that we use the highest quality texts, linked to other areas of the curriculum and school life, where possible and appropriate. Classes have regular story times to develop a love of reading.
Assessment of reading skills is threaded throughout lessons and units of work. Children are tracked against coloured book banded texts to ensure progression in both reading fluency and comprehension.
Alternative Resource Provision
In our Alternative Resource Provision (ARP), children receive a personalised reading and writing curriculum based on their needs. We use RWI phonics to support children’s reading development, as well as 1:1 reading and teacher table planned sessions. A wide variety of high-quality texts are shared with children and revisited so that language and comprehension can be embedded.
Curriculum Impact
Through the teaching of systematic, synthetic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent and confident word readers by the end of KS1.
By the end of KS2, we aspire that children are fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure, as well as use their reading skills to unlock learning in all areas of the curriculum. We firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.