"A child who reads will be an adult who thinks."
Implementation
In EYFS and KS1 reading is taught by a daily phonics lesson. Children are taught to know the sounds of individual letters and how they sound when they are combined. Children take home a reading practice book and a sharing book - by carefully matching the practice books to the phonics stage a child is at, we ensure that they can apply their phonetic knowledge. The sharing book ensures families have the opportunity to develop a love of books and reading together at home. KS1 children are read to regularly as well as heard read in school. Picture books and short stories encourage a love of reading and children will often join in with well- known texts.
In KS2 children continue to read individually but reading as a skill is taught through the whole class teaching of a single novel/or text extracts. Classes will read up to 6 novels a year in addition to picture books, poetry and non-fiction texts. Every lesson centres on reading aloud, with regular modelling by class teachers. Units of work are planned around the core skills of decoding, vocabulary, inference, prediction, explaining, reasoning and summarizing, with lessons focusing on one or more of these interrelated skills. Fluency is developed through modelling and re-reading.
Reading links to all subjects across the curriculum. We use great quality texts in many foundation subjects and our new library is full of texts chosen specifically for our children. We use the Twinkl Rhino Readers in KS1 and Treetops in KS2 to ensure progression of vocabulary and structure. Once children are ready to move on from these schemes, they are taught how to choose books from the library or the class library which are suitable for their reading ability and interests.
Parents are encouraged to hear their children read daily and, in EYFS, KS1 and LKS2, record their comments in a reading record.UKS2 children record their reading on a bookmark. Classes send home recommended book lists at the start of each year.
Teachers read children’s books and talk to their classes about reading. Displays about books are evident throughout the school and part of our approach to encouraging reading for pleasure.
Our Reading Bedtime Boxes that go home each week in KS1. They include a story book, a cuddly toy to snuggle down with and a sachet of hot chocolate.
New Super Books for our library that support reluctant readers and children with dyslexia.
Impact
All pupils will be able to read with accuracy, speed, confidence, fluency and understanding, ready to access the secondary school curriculum. All pupils will make at least good progress from their starting points. Pupils will develop a life-long enjoyment of reading and books.
Reading is assessed termly with the use of NFER tests. (Year 1 start these in the spring term). In addition to this, children read regularly to adults in a 1:1 situation, whole class reading and across the curriculum. They may be given comprehension tasks to complete or be involved in an in depth discussion about a book, all of which is used by the staff to assess the child’s reading ability and what, if any, additional input is required to help them become fluent, proficient readers.
Our reading newsletters can be viewed here:
Our new Reading Shed is open for business!
James Campbell - children's author and comedian
St Bots were lucky enough to receive a visit from James Campbell - he spent all day with us delivering workshops and some stand-up comedy for the children; any were in stitches by the end of their session. James finished up with a book signing event at the end of the day - he even ran out of books because it was so popular. (Don't worry, he's promised us he'll get some more to us all signed.)
