Reading

Intent

At Woodhouse West we want children to be confident and fluent readers who develop a deep love and passion for reading. It is our intent that children at Woodhouse West will be able apply their reading skills so that they can access all areas of the curriculum and be successful later on in life.

We aim to develop pupils who:

• Love reading and are intrinsically motivated to read.
• Can discuss texts they have read with clarity and confidence.
• Read fluently and can therefore comprehend what they have read with ease.
• Have experienced a wide range of high-quality texts with varying themes, contexts and rich vocabulary.

The texts that we use in our curriculum have been carefully selected so that children experience a wide variety of high quality, vocabulary rich literature. Throughout their journey at Woodhouse West, children will be exposed to books from different genres, diverse styles and contexts. Careful consideration has been given to ensure that books selected increase in complexity whether this be theme, knowledge or Lexile as children move through school.

In addition to the texts selected for the taught reading sessions, our reading spine ensures that teachers share more high-quality texts during story time at the end of the school day.

Through these two approaches, children will have studied and listened to both the best modern and classic fiction and poetry; informative and engaging non- fiction as well as visually stimulating picture books by the time they leave Key Stage two. They will be able to make strong links between authors and themes and will be able to confidently discuss this with their teachers and peers.

We are dedicated to developing our staff experts of children’s literature and promoting this ethos through school.

Implementation

The reading curriculum has been designed so that all objectives of the National Curriculum are covered. Progression maps have been created so there is clarity over exactly what is taught at each year group and this has been broken down further into smaller steps for each term. In Key Stage 2, unit plans for reading run alongside writing to ensure that links are clear between the two. Reading in school will be regularly monitored by the reading lead to ensure consistently throughout school and that children make good progress.

Reading in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 is primary taught through Little Wandle (see phonics) whereas in Key Stage 2, it is taught through a book study approach which directly links with writing.

Book study sessions are taught 4 times a week and focus on developing fluency as well as core reading skills through ‘VIPERS” – Visualise, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise. We feel it is important that reading is taught as a whole class so that all children engage in a high-quality reading experience led by the teacher. Reading sessions will incorporate children being read to by the class teacher; pupils reading aloud through different strategies; teachers modelling how to make sense of the s; high quality, specific questioning and children carrying out an independent task. Through this approach, children’s ability to comprehend what they read will become better.

All children read aloud daily, whether this be during phonics and reading in their Little Wandle session or during book study in Key Stage 2. In addition to this, all children read individually at least once a week with either a teacher, teaching assistant or reading volunteer with aim of developing their fluency. Our reading volunteers receive training so that are confident in the approach to take when working with children. All children who have completed the Little Wandle programme are benchmarked all the way up through Key Stage two. This ensures that they have a reading book which is appropriate for their current reading level. 

Regular assessments are carried out to ensure that those children who need additional support receive intervention within a timely manner.

Reading for Pleasure

We aim to provide as many opportunities throughout the school day for children to read or listen stories in a calm and reflective environment. All classrooms have a comfortable area equipped with a range of texts that reflect the classes interests, where children can relax and enjoy reading.

On Mondays, all children take part in a session that encourages reading for pleasure. This is timetabled each half term and includes activities such as: teacher swaps; mystery readers; paired reading with children from a different year group and visits to the local library.

Story time is ring fenced at the end of every school day. Our reading spine has a wide range of fiction (chapter and picture books) as well as poetry chosen with the aim to engage and excite the listener. Each year group have texts that have been specifically chosen to share with children during story time with an aim to broaden reading experiences further. We recognise that teachers’ personal preferences can be just as inspiring to share, therefore there are also opportunities to do this.

Research has proven that when children choose their own literature, it encourages reading for pleasure, therefore all children in school have two reading books: one that is either phonetically decodable or book banded and one that they have chosen to read for pleasure. Teachers build time within the school day for children to enjoy the book that they have chosen themselves.

Our School Library is up to date with the latest in children’s literature and we are dedicated to replenishing books frequently in order to maintain high standards. Children can access the library at all times during the school day.

Impact

Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning and is a continuous process. It is the class teacher’s responsibility to assess the pupils in their class and identify the next steps in their learning.

The following strategies are used to support this:

Assessment for Learning – Information for continued assessment is gathered in a variety of ways: by talking to children and listening to children read, observing their work, questioning and marking.

Assessment of Learning – The attainment of the child is assessed and formally recorded termly. There are several components that are considered by the class teacher when assessing a child’s reading level. These are:

• Little Wandle and benchmarking assessments
• Observations of children reading and pieces of work that children have completed during the term.
• Accuracy of reading key words that are assigned to each year group (National Curriculum)
• Summative assessment at the end of each term.

All this information is used to identify priority areas across school.

Why read at home?

"Parents make the greatest difference to achievement through supporting their child's learning in their home rather than supporting activities in school."

(National Literacy Trust)

Regular reading at home leads to a child improving as a reader faster. However, we appreciate the challenge of juggling family life with home learning! We hope the following information, ideas and links will make it easier.

When to read?

Family life can be frantic and the list of jobs to be done can seem never ending! Often reading with your child is one job that gets pushed aside. But do not despair; reading can be done anytime, anywhere. Below are some ways, you can squeeze in some reading time:

• siblings reading to each other- can they read a younger sibling's bedtime story?
• your child can read to anyone- aunt, uncle, friend, neighbour, another pupil etc
• you can read the road signs to each other, posters or adverts displayed on shop windows
• Use sub-titles on the TV and turn the sound off (although you may not be very popular!)
• your child can read the shopping list to you as you shop
• your child can read the school letters to you that are sent home
• can they read the note you've left them on the fridge?

How do I help my child to read?

• Read with them little and often
• Model a good reader- read newspapers, bedtimes stories, visit the library. ENJOY READING!
• Prompt children on a range of skills they can use to understand the text: looking for any picture clues, sounding out any unknown words, reading around the sentence to try and find the meaning of a word, predicting what they think will happen
• Allow them to read books or comics they are interested in
• Play some reading games with the children

Research shows that regular reading at home leads to a child making accelerated progress in reading; to promote this, we encourage children to participate in our home reading using their reading scrapbook.

How does school help your child to read?

At Woodhouse West Primary School we use a structured reading scheme. The children use phonetically decodable books which are targeted to the phonics phase they are working at from EYFS until they become a fluent, confident reader and move on to colour banded books. This is when they select books to read at their level with guidance from their teacher. Reading lessons take place daily, where the children focus on comprehension skills and discussing the texts.

Over the week the children engage with a variety of experiences to increase and develop their fluency and comprehension skills. The sessions are made up of comprehension sessions and a reading for pleasure session. Throughout the sessions children have the opportunity to read as a group or independently. During the comprehension sessions children are exposed to a range of poems, fiction and non-fiction extracts to develop a range of reading strategies in response to a variety of questions linked around the key skills of prediction, inference, retrieval, sequencing, summarising or vocabulary. The reading for pleasure session fosters and promotes a love and enthusiasm for reading such as time at the local library, paired reading sessions and reading in our immersive reading room.

What makes a good reader?

When we asked the children this question we were met with a variety of answers ranging from having the ability to sound out words to being able to read aloud clearly. At Woodhouse West, we want all our children to be fluent, accurate, have a sound understanding so they can learn from what they read but also enjoy reading.

What should my child read?

At the bottom of the page are links to recommended books that are age appropriate for your child to enjoy independently or as a family.

As a school we are encouraging children from Nursery to Year 6 to try to read as many books on the given list as possible throughout each year of their school life.

Reading areas in classroom have a selection of books from the appropriate list for children to enjoy a specified times throughout the school day. 

Take a look at the list with your child to see how many they have already read and complete activities within their reading scrapbook.

Our Reading Champions are a group of pupils that aim to promote a love of reading across the school. We will meet together regularly to discuss books and reading, sharing our favourite books, exploring different genres of books and authors as well as promoting reading within their classes and across the school.

We are hoping for the children to be involved with the promotion and running of book fairs and events - making posters and helping to run the events by helping parents and children to find particular books. 

We are looking for Reading Champions from KS2.

If you would like to become a Reading Champion, please complete the following application task and hand it in to Mrs Rimmer in the headteacher's office.

Task:

1) Choose your favourite book.

2) Create an A4 or A3 scrapbook style poster which is book review or recommendation which will persuade others to try the book.

Needs to include:

• Name of book & author
• Front Cover either a printed or drawn
• Description of plot (brief- don't give any spoilers away)
• Images- printed or drawn
• Star rating