Reading
We want all our children to develop a love of reading and have a structured approach to how it is taught. Our aim is to develop confident readers who enjoy a wide range of texts.
Children share books as a class, in groups and individually. They develop their understanding of texts through guided reading and whole class comprehension. All year groups visit the school library and we encourage pupils to take school library books home alongside individual reading books.
Intent
At Harpur Hill Primary School and Nursery, reading is at the heart of our curriculum. It is our intention that every child will be a reader. From the start of their journey with us, children are supported to develop a love of reading. They are exposed to high quality texts and through a consistent approach to the teaching of phonics, they are provided with the skills they need to decode confidently (see Phonics and Early Reading sections).
We value reading as a key life skill and we are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We believe that through supporting our children to learn to read, they will be able to read to learn for the rest of their lives. Reading is key for academic success. We believe in developing reading fluency and all comprehension skills coupled with promoting a love of reading so all of our children can access the delights and rewards that reading provides.
Implementation
With these aims in mind, reading opportunities are timetabled daily across all year groups. Reading practice sessions from Reception to Year 6, provide the children with opportunities to develop word reading and comprehension skills, incorporating all strands of reading comprehension. Whole class reading is interwoven into English lessons.
In Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, daily phonics supports the development of early reading skills. In addition to the discrete daily reading, a diverse range of reading opportunities are embedded across the curriculum. Quality texts, which are introduced in our Literacy Tree Writing scheme, are used as a lead into many writing opportunities where new vocabulary can be learnt and applied and whole class texts are shared with the children to allow time to listen and enjoy stories. Vulnerable groups and those needing additional reading support are identified by class teachers and reading interventions are put in place to support the development of their reading. This may be small group comprehension work or additional daily reading to develop fluency and build confidence. Purchases of lower level, older interest books have been bought to support our less confident readers in KS2.
A recent overhaul of our reading scheme books lead to substantial new purchases from a variety of different publishers and complete re-banding of our individual reading books. In classrooms, children are able to choose their own book, from the level that they are currently working, enabling the children to choose a book that is of interest to them. Similarly, new purchases have been made to improve the selection of phonics books available to the children, along with accessing Ebooks for group reading tasks. Reading is celebrated at Harpur Hill Primary School and Nursery and there are many opportunities for the children to develop and enhance their love of reading across the school year. We have a fantastic library that all children can visit to share stories and take out books. Our book week coincides with World book day. We spend the week focusing on reading, with competitions, author visits, creative activities and sharing stories to expose our children to new authors and promote the enjoyment of reading.
Parental support is crucial in the development of a child's reading ability and we love to read your comments in their reading diaries.
Impact
Our pupils enjoy reading and are exposed to a broad range of texts and authors. Successful readers are nurtured through effective teaching of both language comprehension and word reading. Pupils have a good range of vocabulary that they are able to apply in their writing.
We foster a community of enthusiastic and engaged readers and writers who we hope will carry forward the high aspirations and creativity that has been encouraged at Harpur Hill Primary School and Nursery as they move forward in their education.
How do we teach reading?
Intent
It is our intention that every child will be a reader, all children are supported to develop a love of reading.
We develop this love of reading through exposure to high quality texts, which reflects our school values and support children with learning about wider themes within the world such as, enterprise and activism, power vs principles, developing empathy, overcoming adversity.
We value reading as a key life skill and we are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers and to prepare them for the next stage of their education (Secondary school.)
We teach early reading, through a consistent approach using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Scheme to the teaching of phonics, they are provided with the skills they need to decode confidently.
We believe that through supporting our children to learn to read, they will be able to read to learn for the rest of their lives.
We believe in developing reading fluency and all comprehension skills coupled with promoting a love of reading so all our children can access the delights and rewards that reading provides.
Implementation
We use the Little Wandle (LW) Letters and Sounds Revised to plan daily engaging phonics lessons, which starts in Nursery (through Foundations for Phonics and Foundations for Reading). Children follow the Little Wandle teaching sequence to build on their previous phonic knowledge and master specific phonic strategies as they move through school.
In addition to the daily discrete phonics lesson, children in the EYFS and Infants, have reading practice lessons 3 times a week. Reception to Year 1 follow the Little Wandle Programme for this. Children in Year 2, who did not pass the PSC and still require phonics teaching, continue to access phonics teaching through the LW Rapid Catch Up intervention and read a LW decodable book. Year 2 follow the LW structure for a reading practice lesson, using the Big Cat Collins texts. This supports children with continuing to develop their fluency and comprehension skills.
We have to use LW in YR/1 until they finish the LW programme as this is all about decodable books applying their phonic knowledge. But once they have finished we want to promote reading to learn and more independence and choice in books to keep them engaged.
As a school we have chosen to use Big Cat books beyond Y1 as they are the same publisher/format, are wonderful texts and it means we continue to ensure quality RPS in Y2.
From Year 3, the children read book banded books, monitored by their class teacher and move to ‘Free Reading’ when the book bands are completed. Children are able to take books home to read or can bring in books from home to read. The children use reading records to record what they have read. Which is checked every week by their teacher.
Reading Practice lessons are continued in KS2, we use the Reading Explorers scheme, which uses a different text extract each week. Children are taught to read together and with prosody. The week starts with a read of the text follow by discussion and understanding of the content. The next day the children answer the vocabulary lessons, followed by retrieval, prediction and summarising questions on the next day and ending with inference questions in the last lesson.
Whole class texts are shared with the children to allow time to listen to and enjoy stories.
Learning Journeys in our books show the key vocabulary and objectives that will be covered during the unit of work.
Reading for Pleasure is encouraged and promoted through ‘Hooked on Books’ sessions every week and sending books home to read.
Through our writing scheme the children are introduced to a wide variety of high quality, engaging books, which reflect our school values.
The children also have regular visits to our school library to choose books to take home to read.
Impact
Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. With decoding taught as the prime approach to reading, pupils will become familiar with this strategy and have the confidence to work out unfamiliar words in any new texts they encounter even when they have come to the end of the Little Wandle programme.
Pupils will have the opportunity to develop their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school; accessing a range of texts independently. Attainment in reading is measured using statutory assessments such as the end of EYFS, Key Stage 1 and 2 and following the outcomes in the Year 1 Phonics Screening check.
Additionally, we track our own reading attainment through the use of PIRA reading tests termly and reading speed assessments plus ongoing teacher assessment.
More importantly, we believe that reading is the key to unlock all learning and so the impact of our reading goes beyond the statutory assessments. We give all the children the opportunity to enter the amazing new worlds that a book opens up to them and share texts from a range of cultures or genres to inspire them to question or seek out more for themselves. We want reading to be the golden thread running through a child’s journey at Harpur Hill Primary School and Nursery. When they leave us, we want pupils to possess the reading skills and love of literature which will help them to enjoy and access any aspects of learning they encounter in the future.
Supporting your child with reading
Research shows that reading regularly at home as well as at school is the key to academic success. In Reception, your child will bring home high frequency words and early reading scheme books when they are ready. Please help your child to practise reading and encourage them.
As your child becomes more independent, we would advise you to encourage them to read a wide range of books and other reading material.
As a parent, you can ask questions about the story that your child is reading and this will help to develop their comprehension skills.
We appreciate your help with supporting your child's reading.
Click on the following link for a guide to reading at home - Enjoy reading guide
Useful Websites
Suggested reading books for KS1 children
