Reading
Reading is a fundamental part of everything we do at Village Primary School. All staff endeavour to nurture a love of reading; our aim is to provide all children with the tools they need to foster a love of reading, whatever their literary experience or knowledge. We believe that reading for pleasure should be a fundamental part of childhood and lifelong learning whatever the child’s ability, background or culture. We use a wide variety of picture, story and reference books, specifically selected to engage our pupils. At all times when reading, we encourage children to think about and discuss what they have read. Once they have reached a good level of competence, this is used to help them with their learning in other areas of the curriculum. This in turn will make a huge contribution to their educational achievement.
“Reading develops your vocabulary as you are exposed to more words. Year 4”
At Village Primary the teaching of reading is a high priority as it provides the key to accessing so much of the world around us as well as the curriculum. We have a multi-faceted approach with the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics providing the foundation to this. We offer as many opportunities as possible for children to read in both formal and informal settings. Every class displays their ‘Favourite Five’ and we dedicate time everyday to reading for pleasure.
“Reading puts more into your mind and makes you a better learner. Year 5”
Our school reading scheme contains a wide variety of engaging texts, starting with Floppy’s Phonics and progressing onto our core reading scheme, Oxford Reading Tree. Initially, books that can be independently decoded, using phonic knowledge, are selected for the children to read.
Once children have a firm grasp of the phonic system, they progress through the (colour banded) core reading scheme. This requires children to employ a range of reading strategies; including deduction, comprehension, and inference which they will be taught as they progress and develop as fluent, competent readers who understand what they have read.
Our scheme contains books from different genres; stories, poems, play-scripts, fiction and non-fiction. We believe that by giving children the opportunity to experience a wide range of texts they begin to make choices of preferred genre and begin their own life-long love of reading. It is expected that children will read at home most days, at least three times a week (KS1) and 4x a week (KS2). Reading records are sent home with reading books and we aim to work in partnership with parents in helping children both to learn to read and to love reading. Once children become competent readers they access ‘free- readers’ and for children who begin to fall behind with their reading we provide the intervention to help to accelerate progress.
“We love reading and it’s important we do the things we love. Year 6”
READING PRACTICE
Children are regularly heard reading by their teacher or teaching assistant, they take part in a range of adult led activities which build upon early reading skills. Children also complete different activities independently to help them further develop as readers. They develop as competent readers by accessing Floppy’s Phonics and Oxford Reading Tree core scheme. These books are phonetically decode-able which fully supports the reading progress. Children from Year 1 to Year 6 take home reading books from a range of genre, appropriate to their reading stage.
Reading Resources
The development of Reading is supported by our own school graded reading scheme which uses resources from a variety of published materials including:
- Oxford Reading Tree
- Floppy’s Phonics
- Big Cat Phonics
- Rigby Star
- Project X
- Dandelion readers
- Read Write Inc
- Literature by familiar and unfamiliar authors
GUIDED READING
In addition, the class teacher leads whole class guided reading lessons. During these sessions, the teacher models reading a variety of books and text extracts over the year. By reading aloud the children experience a wide range of texts, which they may otherwise not be able to access independently. Quality, challenging texts are selected to ensure that children are exposed to texts with complex narratives, resistant plots, archaic vocabulary, non-linear time sequences and figurative language. Children really enjoy listening to modelled texts and are encouraged to participate by reading aloud using echo reading, choral reading or reading to their partner.
READING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM AND BEYOND
Reading is a fundamental part of much of the school curriculum. Children analyse texts/wagoll and writing topics are based around books and stories. Children in Reception pair up with a ‘Reading Partner’ from Year 5/6 to share stories and develop their reading skills. We also hold theme days, including World Poetry and World Book Day to celebrate authors and their work. Our school has also made strong links with the wider community and during World Book Day we enjoy visiting our local Carehome (Poplars) to read with the residents.
SCHOOL LIBRARY
We have a well-stocked library that has many genres of books
appropriate to age. The books are attractively presented to encourage children to move from the more formal process of learning to read to reading for pleasure. Our Year 5 children are selected as school librarians and the whole school are able to borrow and take books home to share with their family. Children also often have the opportunity to read books in the outdoor classroom/reading area with friends at break and lunchtime.
We are also very lucky to have established strong links with our local library and the whole school enjoys termly visits to Thornaby library to take part in storytime sessions. “I love to listen to Ivan tell stories he makes me laugh.”
READING PLUS IN KEY STAGE TWO (Y4-Y6)
Reading Plus is an online programme designed to improve reading comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, and overall literacy. It personalises learning by assessing each pupil’s reading level and adapting content to their needs, with texts becoming more challenging as skills develop. Year 4 begin their reading plus journey in the Spring term and continue until the Spring of Year 6.