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Reading
Reading Curriculum Statement
Intent
At Findern, not only do we want to create accomplished and able readers, but more importantly we want to instill a love of reading that will stay with our children throughout their lives – reading is an adventure that never ends.
Findern Primary puts reading at the heart of the curriculum. We believe that reading is a key tool for life. Our aim is to deliver a curriculum that enables our children to be ready for the next stage of their education at the end of each phase and to be ‘secondary ready’ when they finally leave us at age 11. We teach children to become confident and competent readers by learning how to word read and by developing comprehension skills which they can apply across the curriculum. Furthermore, one of the main aims of Accelerated Reader is to inspire a love of reading and to create life-long readers; the freedom to choose their own books and motivation of scoring points on the quizzes is something that our children really enjoy. Parents are actively encouraged to be involved in their child’s reading journey throughout their time at school. Ultimately, our goal is for all children to reach their full potential in reading. Additional support and intervention are given to those children who are working below age related expectations.
Implementation
Early reading is prioritised in FS1, FS2 and KS1. It is underpinned by a coherent and systematic phonics scheme taught daily.
Phonics is taught through daily phonics lessons which are short and pacey using the Twinkl Scheme approach that supports the learning of the phonemes and corresponding graphemes. The children then apply their learning in a meaningful context through a range of carefully planned activities. As well as being encouraged to practice their sounds in phonics lessons and at home, the children read their phonics book with an adult in school each week to further consolidate their learning.
In addition to the National Phonics Screening Check at the end of Year 1, children are frequently assessed throughout their phonics learning journey to check they are retaining the phonics sounds being taught. Any child who falls behind will immediately receive additional interventions to support their progress. Further whole class teaching of phonics also continues in Year 2 with Phase 6 until the scheme is complete and the children are secure in their knowledge.
Throughout EYFS and KS1, parents are encouraged to be a part of their child’s reading journey and are invited to attend a number of phonics and reading workshops so that they are fully equipped to support their child at home and promote a love of reading.
Children have access to a wide range of quality texts and are given a library book from the day they join school in Nursery. These books have been carefully selected to promote a love of reading and are to be enjoyed together with an adult. The children have the opportunity to select a book that sparks their imagination and sharing these books aims to promote comprehension skills by discussing the pictures and the text that is read to them. We believe shared reading together is a powerful way of having extended conversations with children, extending their vocabulary and offering children interesting things to investigate. It also introduces them to early reading skills such as reading from left to right and page sequencing.
In EYFS and KS1, we use the Rhino Readers reading scheme which is in partnership with our Twinkl phonics scheme. The scheme is supplemented with books from Oxford Reading Trees ‘Floppy Phonics’ collection to enable the children to consolidate the sounds they are working on in school. This means your child will always receive a book containing only the phonics sounds they have already been taught in school, or sounds that they are secure with, to allow them to apply their learning and ultimately, support them in becoming confident and fluent readers.
Class books are also shared on a daily basis with the teacher to offer further opportunities for the children to hear a range of vocabulary and explore a text by asking and answering questions. Reading comprehension skills are developed further during guided reading sessions following the Complete Comprehension scheme, which focuses on a specific comprehension skill within each short unit and exposes them to a range of genres of writing.
As children progress into Key Stage 2, those children not secure in their phonics knowledge will continue to attend rapid reading intervention support. They also continue with guided reading sessions, following the Complete Comprehension scheme, all the way through to Year 6. This means that our children have a deep understanding of the different comprehension skills required to understand and enjoy what they read, as well as preparing them to achieve well in their SATs.
Children will have a personalised reading journey throughout KS2, as they have the freedom to select their own books in line with their Accelerated Reader ZPD. In addition, the children are exposed to high quality model texts as part of the Talk for Writing program, through which English reading and writing skills are taught. There are also many opportunities for further reading in our broad and balanced curriculum lessons.
Accelerated Reader Findern link: Welcome (renaissance-go.com)
Impact
Impact is measured in EYFS and KS1 through frequent phonics assessments to assess the sounds the children know as well as the reading of tricky words. Summative assessments are completed at the end of each half term and used to form intervention groups.
When a child is secure in their phonics knowledge they will move onto Accelerated Reader – for the majority of children this is expected to happen during Year 2. The half-termly ‘star assessments’ on Accelerated Reader are used to assess each child’s reading age as well as determining their ZPD. Staff are able to constantly monitor what the children are reading and how they are performing on the quizzes. This means we can ensure that the children are accessing books that match their ability and that also provide challenge. Furthermore, summative reading comprehension tests are used as an assessment tool during each term and the results are added to the whole school Reading Tracker.