INTENT:
At Bromesberrow St. Mary’s school, our intent for Reading is (as for the whole curriculum) to build knowledge ‘cumulatively’, so that children build on their knowledge and skills in Reading, as they grow throughout the school, living out our vision: Shining Together, We Reach for the Stars. We teach the National Curriculum for reading. Our core drivers for Reading are:
- To teach children to be fluent readers, in terms of word reading and decoding so that they read with increasing accuracy and speed, enabling them to comprehend and access the curriculum.
- To inspire children to enjoy reading through a culture of 'joyful' and explicitly modelled reading, providing rich and diverse quality texts that they can connect with and 'become immersed in’.
- For children to learn from what they read, acquiring knowledge of the world, building on their cultural capital e.g. nature, history, scientific phenomena, different cultures and beliefs.
- For books to provide mirrors and windows to the world, so that children see themselves reflected and positively represented in books and that their perspectives can be broadened by experiences and places they may not get the opportunity to experience.
- To adapt our teaching of reading to support the most vulnerable of children to learn to read, providing timely support and intervention for those children not mastering in reading.
IMPLEMENTATION:
In order to become a reader, you need to master word reading and language comprehension, which in turn develops reading comprehension (the mark of a proficient reader).
We teach Word Reading through:
Phonics and Early Reading
Skilled word reading involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Underpinning both is the understanding that the letters on the page represent the sounds in spoken words. This is why phonics should be emphasised in the early teaching of reading to beginners (i.e. unskilled readers) when they start school. We use Little Wandle to teach phonics. This approach is continued throughout the school (using the Little Wandle Rapid Catch up Programme) when intervention is required at a phonic level with the aim for children to keep pace with the phonics curriculum. All reading books are matched to the phonics that the children are being taught (however this is fluid dependent upon the needs of the children). We use Little Wandle reading books. All the adults who listen to children read are trained and understand how children learn to read and their role in this.
We teach comprehension through:
Good comprehension draws from linguistic knowledge (in particular of vocabulary and grammar) and on knowledge of the world. Comprehension skills develop through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction. At Bromesberrow, we have a strong commitment to building children’s comprehension through our Quality Text Guided Reading Approach (DERIC, which is further explained below). This approach supports a deeper understanding of the whole curriculum, with texts carefully chosen and intentionally planned to enhance the learning at a cross curricular level e.g. when looking at Stone Age in history one of our texts for year 2 is ‘Glog’ (the story of a stone age boy and his family) and when looking at WW2 in Class 3, year 6 would be reading ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’. It is important to us that we have that interconnectedness as we know that this has a strong impact on children’s engagement and ability to retain knowledge learned.
Both Word Reading and Comprehension are developed through:
Individual Reading
Children have regular opportunities to practise their reading in class. Our younger children have matched books based on the phonics they are being taught through Little Wandle. Children then progress on to more challenging 'chapter' books matched to their ability and interests. Children are heard read on an individual level as much as we are able and we value to partnership with parents and reading helpers on this too. We work hard to match books to the child's reading level, so that they have just the right amount of challenge.
Storytelling
Children are regularly read to in every class. This is a valuable and valued time, where children are able to listen and develop an appreciation for the pleasure of reading. They have chance to read aloud themselves, developing expression and intonation and value becoming the storyteller.
Guided Reading
Guided reading provides an opportunity for children to develop and extend their skills in reading, developing their understanding and learning new things. Guided reading provides an opportunity to enrich and deepen curriculum learning. Guided Reading is taught once a week and is consistent in its language across the school: Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Infer, Choice (or DERIC for short). This is based on Rhoda Wilson's work on 'Beyond Comprehension Sheets'. Texts have been chosen to extend children's vocabulary and comprehension as they progress throughout the school. Further information on our approach can be accessed below.
Reading for Pleasure
It is essential that children WANT to read, as it is this that will drive them forward as readers. There are huge links between being a good reader and success in learning across the curriculum. It is our aim to encourage and nurture our developing readers by ensuring they have a great selection of exciting and stimulating texts to choose from. We have developed reading spaces around the school to provide a cosy space to curl up with a book and host reading experiences for children and families. It is important that children feel comfortable and ready to read too.
IMPACT
In order for our Reading curriculum to have had an impact, we will see children who:
- Enjoy reading! Are enthusiastic and excited about books (hard copy and online)
- Are able to read with a good word automaticity (using decoding and sight reading) for their age by the end of KS1, so that they are ready to access the curriculum at KS2.
- Have strong fluency; they are able to read with accuracy, speed, expression and with good understanding.
- Have good comprehension through vocabulary, retrieval, inference, choice and connectivity (DERIC)
- Children are able to articulate and share what they have learned from reading, demonstrating that they have gained knowledge and insight from a variety of texts.