English: Reading
English: Reading Curriculum Statement
Intent
At Healey, we believe that reading is an integral part of the school curriculum and a fundamental life skill that impacts on all learning. Everything else depends on it and so we put in as much energy as possible to ensure that every child enjoys reading and learns to read, regardless of their background, and as quickly as possible. We want every child to love reading and to want to learn to read for themselves. Therefore, we aim to inspire a true love of reading, whereby our children are enthusiastic and motivated readers who feel confident to be able to talk about books and authors. We ensure our children have access to a high-quality English curriculum that is both challenging and enjoyable for all readers. We teach our children to be inquisitive readers, provoking thought, leading to children who enjoy asking questions about the texts they are reading; allowing them to gain a deeper understanding of what they have read. We recognise the importance of reading wide and often and so ensure our reading curriculum is broad and balanced. Stretching across a wide range of genres, we teach a variety of discreet and cross-curricular learning opportunities, so that the children truly appreciate our literary heritage. In turn, this enhances our children’s vocabulary through exposure to high quality texts that they may not normally read. We value the importance of being a confident reader and work hard to develop children’s reading skills. At Healey JIN School, we strive to develop our children’s phonetic skills through the Read Write Inc programme, which leads to them reading accurately and fluently.
Implementation
We have carefully developed a reading curriculum whereby all classes are exposed to high quality texts, across a wide range of genres throughout the years, which is progressive. Teachers use imaginative and creative planning to ignite children’s passion for reading throughout a range of lesson styles including; drama, role play and classroom discussion. Years 1-6 take part in daily ‘Whole Class Reading’ sessions where they have the opportunity to widen their experience of reading alongside their peers. All children have access to the same book, vocabulary and discussion throughout these carefully planned lessons to enrich their reading experience. In Key Stage Two, we have a skills-based approach to reading using the VIPERS as a set of skills:
Vocabulary
Inference
Prediction
Explain
Retrieve
Summarise
Teaching these key skills enables our children to gain a better understanding of each text during their English sessions, while delving deeper into the English Curriculum. In Reception and Key Stage One, there is greater emphasis on phonics; this is then built upon and consolidated throughout the rest of the school. During our daily phonics sessions, children can revisit previous learning, learn new skills, practise and apply their knowledge in an environment that is both engaging and stimulating. All children have daily opportunities to read a variety of material in school, including regularly with an adult. Each classroom has a book corner so that all children are able to access this throughout the day and can choose a book of their choice.
Home Reading
Every child is given a home reading book that they can take home and enjoy in their own time. We encourage all children to read at least three times a week, though many children exceed this.
In Reception and Key Stage 1, all children are given a decodable reading book which is specifically matched to the phonics level they are working at. The books vary in several ways, including layout, size, vocabulary and length, to give the children a rich diet of literature. We feel it is hugely important for our children to receive home reading books matched directly to their phonics knowledge so that they become confident and fluent readers, before moving on to a greater difficulty. After the children have successfully learned all sounds in phase two to five of Letters and Sounds, they are then moved on to colour banded books.
In Key Stage 2, we use the Accelerated Reading Programme where the children receive a home reading book which is linked directly to their reading level. This is assessed regularly throughout the terms to ensure an appropriate level of challenge and skill to continue to improve their reading skills. We also encourage pupils to choose their own books alongside their home reading book either from the class book corner or class library. Again, this is carefully monitored by staff and parents, to ensure appropriate challenge and progression of reading.
Promoting the Love of Reading
We also provide a wealth of enrichment opportunities, from hosting the World Book Day event every March; an annual whole school reading project; class visits to our local library; an annual group project run by Batley Library focussing on books from the of the Kate Greenaway Medal list and a range of trips and visits which complement children’s learning. We love to celebrate the success of all learners and strive to help all children achieve their goals, so for reading we have a special reading assembly every week, highlighting ‘Star Readers’ throughout school. Reading is celebrated in classrooms and around school at Healey, where our bright and colourful displays celebrate children’s writing and their favourite books.
Impact
Reading in our school is progressive and planned to meet the needs of all children. Assessments are carried out regularly to ensure children are accessing books of the right level and are being challenged in their reading. Summative assessments are entered into ITrack each half term. Teachers will use their professional judgement to determine whether a child is working within age-related expectations, above or below. They will base their judgements for the most part on the quality of the written outcomes pupils given after structured teaching within the agreed reading skills. Teachers will also complete Cornerstone reading assessments to provide another piece of evidence to support their assessment judgement. If tests are used, care is taken to ensure that pupils are prepared appropriately for the test, and any barriers to accessing these is removed.
If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making expected or more than expected progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Phonics assessment
- Phonics screening results
- Book band colour
- ZPD scores
- Reading ages given through the AR program
- Summative assessments each term
- End of Key stage SATS results
English in the Early Years
English is one of the seven aspects to the Early Years Framework, known as Literacy and is fundamental to a child’s successful development of Reading and Writing as they progress throughout the rest of the school.
In Early Years, we promote early Reading and Writing as we believe it underpins their natural curiosity of storytelling and early mark marking. In Nursery and in Reception, we carefully plan for Literacy throughout our continuous provision, enabling mark making and early sound recognition throughout their independent time. Within every area of the classroom we can provide opportunities for children to mark make, for example, in the Construction Area, we provide simple slips of paper for the children to ‘name and label’ their creations so that we know it is theirs.
Throughout our EYFS, we provide fun and exciting reading activities for children including; fishing out sounds from the water tray, squirting different phonemes using water guns as well as taking books into the outdoor areas for children to enjoy while sitting on the grass.
In Nursery, children begin to explore Phase One Phonics and learn to discriminate between environmental, instrumental and body sounds as well as beginning to develop an awareness of rhyme, alliteration and oral sound blending.
In Reception, we begin to teach individual phonemes, starting with Phase Two. During daily Phonics sessions we teach children to discriminate between different phonemes as well as teaching them to segment and blend sounds in words to read them. In addition to this, we share a love for reading with various stories that can be shared with the children. Every term, we focus on a high-quality text and provide opportunities for the children to sequence, re-tell and use role play to develop their own ideas of storytelling.
Our Reading Lead Teacher is Miss Medley.
Our English Lead Teacher is Miss Charlett.
