Reading

Intent

At The Bay C.E School, we believe that every child should be given the tools to become confident, independent and resilient learners. By using quality texts which are interwoven within our text-rich curriculum, we aim to do this by providing children with essential reading skills, teaching reading through synthetic phonics whilst further supporting this from Early Years with phonetically decodable, accessible texts. As children progress through our school, this exposure to rich texts is continued through independent access to quality texts, and the use of a high-quality class text.  By planning English Learning Journeys and focussed Guided Reading around a quality text, children will make links between themselves and the wider world, and use this to ask further questions to guide their own learning. By immersing children into a variety of texts and text types, both within their year groups, Key Stage and their whole Primary School phase, children will not only develop a love of reading, but will also gain the grammatical, structural and linguistic understanding to use within their own writing. This will be further supported across the wider curriculum by having access to each topic in different contexts and narratives. 

Implementation:

Across the school, each classroom has designated reading areas to encourage a life-long love of reading. This also includes a central library, which all classes have access to. Children are encouraged to read daily at home; Reading Records are shared with parents and checked on a regular basis by staff in school, and reading at school is further recorded in these.

Alongside the Reading Records, The Bay works closely with parents and carers outside of the classroom in order to encourage a love of reading. From EYFS through to Year Six, there are workshops for parents to attend to explore reading from its phonetic roots through to the joy and connection of story reading. As well as our well stocked school library, links have been established with the local Library, and events such as ‘books at bedtime’, where children and parents are invited into school in the evening for hot chocolate and to have stories read to them, have further embedded the link between home and school. Parents are communicated with regularly regarding their children’s reading and offered support in how to help their children. This relationship feeds into the frequency and fluency of children’s reading, improving children’s confidence with reading and their access to a wide range of texts.

In Early Years, Year 1 and Year 2 (where required), emphasis is placed on ensuring children master early reading skills.Children are taught phonics through ‘Little Wandle’, which is a DFE accredited Systematic Synthetic Phonics (S.S.P) programme. This happens daily, and is followed up by related activities, both in and outside of the classroom. A variety of strategies are used and adapted in recognition of all learners as individuals. Alongside this, children are regularly assessed and matched with phonetically decodable books. These form the basis of their Reading lessons and home reading.

Guided Reading happens three times a week, teaching children (at the appropriate level and phase) decoding, prosody and comprehension, offering children the opportunity to discuss and explore different texts. Children are introduced to high frequency words, and these are communicated with parents.

From Year 2, children are further encouraged to use a range of strategies for reading, such as word recognition and spelling strategies. Guided Reading continues to be a focus for all children, and from Year 3 this happens as a whole class, enabling all children to have access to age-appropriate texts and quality book-talk. This is alongside specific small-group reading sessions, targeted at specific and individual learner’s needs. Class texts are chosen to match with the Learning Experience focus that children are studying in the wider curriculum, and these form the basis of the majority of reading, writing and grammar teaching. 

In the initial part of the teaching cycle, children are immersed into the text. Each learning focus is centred around reading skills and links in to developing skills for children to create a final piece of writing at the end of the journey. The text forms the basis of initial activities, which can take the form of written or practical activities. Central to the Learning Journey is reading the text as a writer, and using the text to support their development and new learning of grammar skills, as well as continuing to develop a writer’s voice. As the children complete the journey, they will have explored the text, alongside other deliberately well-chosen texts forms, and gained a greater confidence and ability to tackle more demanding texts.

Impact:

The impact of our Reading Curriculum can be measured against statements of intent:

• Children have the tools to be confident, independent and resilient learners - Through exposing children to a variety of challenging, age-appropriate texts, childrenwill be challenged through enquiry-led questioning, as well as challenging their own thinking. By being exposed to a wide range of authors, genres and topics, children will have the experience and courage to tackle the unfamiliar, and through the targeted planning of learning journeys and deliberate links to the children’s wider learning, children will develop the skills to make their own links. By providing children with decodable texts and challenging (whilst guiding them) through texts which are more demanding, children will develop a transferable level of resilience.
• Providing children with essential reading skills - In EYFS, key milestones have been identified across the year and are used to assess the children’s progress towards Early Learning Goals in reading. Throughout EYFS and Year 1, children are assessed routinely to ensure they are secure with each phase of phonics taught. Any identified gaps are addressed and children are given targeted support. Because phonics is the only route to decoding, this is a huge focus throughout the school, from EYFS to the end of KS2. Rigorous assessment means that any gaps are quickly identified and, through keep-up and catch-up with Little Wandle strained staff, these are quickly addressed. Throughout the school, PIXL assessments are used to assess children’s progress against Key Performance Indicators and each National Curriculum Reading Domain. These assessments are used to create therapy groups (PIXL terminology) to ensure children make the necessary progress in all areas of reading. 
• Children will make links between themselves and the wider world, and use this to ask further questions to guide their own learning - By linking the texts alongside the school’s Learning Experiences - which will themselves be formed around an enquiry question based approach - children will be able to link their own experiences and understanding of the world together with their new learning within the wider curriculum and see how the text fits alongside this. Through encouraging wider thinking by posing an enquiry question, children will develop their wider thinking and be confident enough to pose their own questions and prompt investigations.
• Children will  develop a love of reading - Because each classroom has its own reading area, independent reading is strongly encouraged. Children are given time to do this in the school week, and the Reading Records are used to prompt and guide discussions between both children and their peers, and children and adults. Access to a variety of texts will encourage children to explore different genres and authors. Partnerships formed between school and home through workshops will further support this.
• Gain the grammatical, structural and linguistic understanding to use within their own writing - Texts have been carefully chosen to support the children’s learning in all areas of the English curriculum. Through seeing taught grammatical structures used in real life, this will enable children to not only understand the fundamental rules of their usage, but how they add quality and richness to a piece of writing. As children will recognise this usage within texts, this will encourage their life-long learning and understanding, ensuring that once they have transitioned to Secondary School, they will continue to develop their understanding of previously taught grammar skills and knowledge.

What children say about reading at The Bay;

 “I loved the hot chocolate and listening to the story in my pyjamas!”

“I always get excited when my name is read out for the Every Child a Reader draw in assembly.”

“I loved reading ‘Stone Age Boy’ as it linked really well to our project.”

Click here for year 3 reading overview

Click here for year 4 reading overview

Click here for year 5 reading overview

Click here for year 6 reading overview

Pupils in EYFS-Year 2 have reading lessons based around the Little Wandle scheme. 

Click here to view our Non-Statutory Policies Page where you can view a copy of our Reading Policy. 

Useful Links

Click here to view the school reading list

Click here to view the Little Wandle website