Reading
Pupils are encouraged to become confident, enthusiastic, critical and independent readers. They should be able to cope with print produced in a variety of forms and for a variety of purposes and read for information, interest and enjoyment.
Shared Reading
Within literacy lessons shared reading is an essential tool to teach reading skills to the whole class. Either big books are used as the main teaching resource, multiple copies of texts or a range of ICT interactive, information or visual texts.
Although there is more of an emphasis on reading from screen than ever before and our aim is to promote the use of ICT, whilst always ensuring our children still receive a balanced exposure to ‘real’ books.
A wide range of genres is covered and the teacher’s modelling of reading develops the children’s interest and love of reading as well as skills, knowledge and understanding.
Home and Individual Reading
Whilst children are learning to read, they also bring home a home reading book. This is a book which is shared at home, and parents are asked to make comments in their child's reading diary. These books are levelled according to coloured book bands. To see a list of these book bands click here. Confident readers will be offered a choice of library books to extend their reading.
In Reception and Key Stage 1, children will often read their home reading book with an adult during the school day.
Where children are working above age related expectations they will be offered the opportunity to complete a termly reading challenge.
Guided Reading
In Guided Reading, the children are grouped and taught according to their reading ability.
In Reception and Key Stage 1 this takes place once per week; the groups of children have challenging texts, chosen at instructional level, to develop their skills and confidence.
In Key Stage 2, guided reading sessions take place daily, with the children working on longer novels, particularly in Upper Key Stage 2. They will read and discuss the book with an adult and also have a range of other activities to stretch their comprehension skills across a range of different strands of reading. To see a list of these assessment focuses click here.
Phonics
Across the FS and KS1 RML (Ruth Miskin Literacy) is used to teach phonics discretely. In small groups, based around ability children
- learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts
- learn to read words using sound blending
- read lively stories featuring words they have learned to sound out
- participate in meaningful discussion led by an adult children show that they comprehend the stories by answering questions
They also
- learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds
- learn to write words by saying the sounds and graphemes
- learn to build sentences orally using adventurous vobabulary
- start with simple sentences and develop towards more complex ones by the end of the programme
- compose a range of texts using discussion prompts
Some of Year 6 have been reading the Hunger Games in Guided Reading. They role played interviews with the tributes. Click the links below to hear how they went!
Helping your child to read
Supporting reading at home (pdf)
Blending
Help your child learn to read words by sounding-blending (Fred talk) eg. c-a-t = cat, sh-o-p = shop. Children learn to read words by blending the letter-sounds that are in the Speed Sounds set (shown further down the page).
Help your child to say the pure sounds (‘m’ not ‘muh’, ‘s’ not ‘suh’ etc.) as quickly as they can, and then blend the sounds together to say the whole word.
Support your child at home using the following guide:
Pure Sounds Guide (pdf)
Visit the Oxford Owl website (external link) which has has over 100 free ebooks for to enjoy with your child.
Recommended Reading
These are suggested titles which your children may enjoy.
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