Reading

Curriculum Intent

We aim to create a positive reading and writing culture in our school, where both are promoted and enjoyed by our pupils. We aim to establish an appreciation and love of reading at all stages of the learning journey. We believe that reading is an essential life skill, and we are committed to enabling our learners to become lifelong readers.  

At the heart of our strategy is a focus to foster a love of reading in our pupils and we aim to provide them with a language-rich environment through providing high-quality texts and challenge and inspiring learning opportunities which will help them to:  

•      Read accurately, fluently and with understanding 
•      Be able to read with expression, clarity and confidence 
•      Develop a good linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar 
•      Engage with a range of different text types, genres and cultural traditions  
•      Read for pleasure and for information 
•      Initiate a life-long enjoyment of reading  

By the time our pupils leave Reydon Primary School, we envisage that they will be competent and avid readers, who read fluently and widely and can express preferences, recommend books to their peers and seek out books from a range of different genres, including poetry. We want our pupils to read for pleasure, having had access to a wide range of high-quality text types, genres and authors to inform their preferences.  Once our pupils have unlocked the key to reading here with us at Reydon, it is our intention that they will be able to apply their reading skills to access any subject in their secondary education and beyond.  

Curriculum Implementation

 We support all children to learn to read through: 

•      Continuing professional development 
•      Consistent teaching and learning approaches 
•      Regular monitoring and assessment  
•      Nurturing a joint commitment between school and home 
•      Promoting reading in the learning environment 
•      Opportunities to read throughout the curriculum 
  

  Early Reading

In Reception and KS1, we follow the Little Wandle programme and deliver daily phonics sessions which are organised in groups to meet the needs of the children. Regular assessments ensure an appropriate level of challenge inform groupings.  

Following a phonics lesson, Reception and KS1 pupils have reading practice sessions where they review the sounds and practice the tricky words they have been taught; and practice reading words containing the sounds they have been learning. The pupils also take part in prosody and comprehension sessions, which help them to read with expression and understanding.  

At the end of KS1, children have reading for pleasure sessions where they share stories with their peers.  The school reading books that are appropriately matched and are taken home allow the KS1 children to demonstrate their fluency and confidence in reading aloud. 

We use phonics screening data to monitor pupils and ensure that in KS2, we provide additional support for those that are still not yet confident in applying their phonics skills using the Rapid Phonics programme. 

Reading Curriculum across Reydon Primary School 

Through the delivery of our reading curriculum, we strive to ensure a consistent and robust approach to the teaching and learning of phonics, early reading and comprehension. We focus on the five domains of reading at an age-appropriate level: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. 

Our school uses a variety of different reading schemes, from Little Wandle Big Cat Collins, The Oxford Reading Tree and a wide variety of quality texts that are book banded to show progression and challenge for all.  

We provide a text-rich environment, using high quality texts selected in order to encourage a positive culture of reading and to promote pupils’ enjoyment of reading 

Texts include but are not limited to those within the Pie Corbett reading spine. Our poetry, fiction, and non-fiction offer reflects different genres, themes and texts from our literary heritage. Texts may also require pupils to follow non-linear sequences and discuss figurative or symbolic form.  

Reading in KS2

Through high-quality teaching and learning experiences, we will develop children’s reading skills and confidence across four planned guided reading sessions per week in KS2. Pupils are immersed in vocabulary within whole class novels read in their entirety and through extracts. They engage in prosody sessions, where teachers ensure that their own modelled reading supports pupils to look for clues that help to support their understanding before deepening their knowledge of a text through comprehension sessions.  

In KS2, teachers use Pixl question stems to support the planning, teaching and learning of each content domain for reading. Reading for pleasure sessions form part of our regular reading offer and every class has a class story or novel read to them daily. 

We celebrate reading with our pupils and through hosting a range of events across the academic year with National Poetry Day, World Book Day, Scholastic book fairs and whole school reading challenges linked to the Suffolk Library Service.  

We tune in to webinars and workshops with authors and we celebrate pupil’s efforts through the online reading record platform - Boomreader and advertise our class stories and novels using displays around the school.  

Teachers, with support from the English Lead, and Senior Leadership Team, draw upon careful observations and continuous assessment to ensure children are challenged and to identify children who may need additional support. Timely intervention is planned for those children who may need additional support in aspects of reading.  .

Curriculum Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, children become fluent and confident word readers by the end of KS1.  

Our mission is that by the end of Year 6, all pupils will be able to read with accuracy, speed, confidence, fluency and understanding, ready to access the forthcoming, secondary education. 

This is measured and achieved through monitoring the teaching and learning of reading through the following:  

•      Summative assessments to inform teacher judgements; 
•      PiXL assessments to understand areas to develop in class;  
•      Regular phonics assessments to ensure groupings are accurate and of suitable challenge 
•      Teacher monitoring of home reading and encouraging where needed 
•      Regular assessments of children’s fluency 
•      Pupil voice 
•      Governor visits 
•      Learning walks 

Our impact is measured against our intent that by the time children leave Reydon Primary, our readers can articulate their preferences, recommend books to their peers, participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader.  

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 as we develop capable, life-long readers.