Curriculum -  Reading

We teach the key skills of English (as a spoken language, reading and writing) discretely in literacy and in context through our carefully planned topic work. Our aim is to inspire children to read and write independently, skilfully and with pleasure.

Reading covers a range of skills, the first being word reading. This is taught through daily Phonics lessons where children learn to orally hear and say the sounds in words, match sounds to their graphemes (letters, digraphs and trigraphs) and use these skills to blend to read and segment to spell words. Children are also taught to recognise similarities in word structures and make spelling choices. Recall of key words and sight vocabulary is also taught in line with the age related stages of the National Curriculum.

Through our daily English lessons, Short burst story sessions and class storytimes we encourage children to take delight in stories and other books, and develop a progressively deeper understanding of what has been read. We encourage children to discuss what has been read and share thoughts, opinions and ideas about texts.

All this supports children in their own comprehension of a range of texts and sets them off into a world where they appreciate and enjoy a positive relationship with the written word.

Reading Implementation

Language and reading comprehension are taught throughout the school and across the curriculum. This takes on a variety of different forms from book talk to discrete reading sessions.

• From Reception onwards comprehension is carried out around the class text to ensure that pupils have a secure understanding of what they have heard and has been read to them.
• Texts are carefully chosen by teachers from our school reading spine and are linked to subjects across the curriculum, and our curriculum themes.In early years lots of the books selected have repeated refrains to support language building and development.
• In RWI reading sessions, all learners participate in both whole class and small group reading sessions, engaging and responding to texts.
• Through challenge and support, all learners can achieve.
• Within reading sessions, key reading strategies are explicitly taught.

Vocabulary

We recognise the importance of developing a rich and extensive bank of vocabulary and how this links closely to being a confident and able reader.

• Teachers ensure that new and difficult vocabulary is taught using the EEF (Education Endowment Fund) explicit teaching of vocabulary model. Meanings of words are provided and the children come up with a shared action to support their understanding.
• Vocabulary teaching plays a pivotal role in every reading session.
• A good grasp of vocabulary knowledge allows children to have reading success.

Story time books

All classes are exposed to a daily class reader, for pleasure, to excite and engage them. The children have the opportunity to vote for these in each class from Reception to Year 2. These texts focus on PHSE and social and emotional wellbeing covering a wide range of topics to allow the children to ask questions, feel seen and validated and be exposed to cultures, feeling and breaking stereotypes