Curriculum Statement: Reading
‘Excellence, Truth and Grace’
Reading Intent
At Middleton Parish Church School, we aim for all our children to have a love reading. Our wish is for them to have no limits to what their aspirations could be and for them to grow up wanting to be authors, journalists, poets and reporters. Children will embody our school motto of ‘excellence, truth and grace’ in their approach to reading a variety of texts, comprehend a text and being able to discuss different topics that may be present in a book. The reading curriculum has been carefully designed so that all our pupils develop their word reading and comprehension knowledge and understanding to support not only fluent and confident readers but also confident speakers and writers also. Pupils are encouraged to read a wide range of text in all year groups from Nursery through to Year 6. We want all our pupils to leave primary school with a love of reading and to remember their learning in reading.
Children in Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 read books linked to their Read Write Inc. phonics sessions. Once the children are more fluent readers, they begin to read levelled books as part of the Oxford Reading Tree scheme, which can be accessed by children at the end of Key Stage 1 and continues until the end of Key Stage 2. Children who are able to easily read and comprehend books at the end of the levelled scheme (level 20) will become a 'free reader' and will not need to select books from the levelled scheme. 'Reading for pleasure' is also actively encouraged engagement with quality texts within reading lessons, story time in class, by children having opportunities to read books from class libraries, access to books in our school library as well as opportunities to be a reading ambassador, to join the Parish Book Club, read books purchased from regular Scholastic book fairs and other projects across school to promote a love of reading.
Our reading curriculum follows the National Curriculum and is focused upon the development of pupils’ reading within two aspects - word reading and comprehension (both listening and reading). Within word reading, we aim to develop fluent pronunciation of both familiar and unfamiliar words through children’s secure knowledge and understanding that the letters on a page represent the sounds in spoken words. This is why we emphasise phonics in the early teaching of reading in both EYFS and Key Stage 1. Successful comprehension draws from children’s linguistic knowledge (in particular vocabulary and grammar) and on their knowledge of the world. We seek to develop comprehension skills through pupils’ exposure to a wide variety of engaging stories, poetry and non-fiction texts and children taking part in high quality classroom discussions about the texts they are reading.
The reading curriculum is progressively sequenced to ensure that pupils gain recognition of the key foundational knowledge and concepts. This supports pupils to become fluent readers and embed the strategies required for effective comprehension of texts. Through high quality discussions, pupils are able to articulate key ideas, consolidate understanding and extend their vocabulary thus developing inference skills.
Reading Implementation
At Middleton Parish, we endeavour to ensure children are excited about reading and that there is a ‘reading for pleasure’ ethos across the whole school. We do this through making sure that each year group are reading a range of high-quality texts. In years 2 – 6, these texts are their class novel. In EYFS and year 1, children read a range of shorter texts over the course of the year.
In EYFS and Key Stage One, reading is taught through daily ‘Read, Write, Inc’ lessons. Children spend the first part of the session learning new sounds and reviewing previously taught sounds. As part of this session, they also look at nonsense words. In the second part of the lesson children focus on reading a book with the aim of building up their reading fluency, pace and expression throughout the week. Each group have a coloured book that is specific to where they have been assessed at (assessments take place each half term).
In Key Stage Two, children begin a new class novel by looking at the front cover and blurb of the book and then use this information to make their own predictions on what they think the book is going to be about etc. They also find out about the author and illustrator.
Teachers then carefully plan a sequence of lessons based on the class novel ensuring that all necessary contents domains are covered.
Each lesson follows a step-by-step process based on guidance set out by the EEF.
Step 1 – Flashback
Pupils complete a short, pacey activity planned by the class teacher that requires them to flashback to something they have already been taught giving teachers the opportunity to ensure this learning has gone into children’s long-term memory.
Step 2 – Anchor
This step is another quick task linked to something that has previously happened in the current class novel to support children in getting back into their learning.
Step 3 – Prediction
Children make predictions about what they think is going to happen next in their class novel based on what they have already read and also their understanding of stories.
Step 4 – Read
During this part of the lesson, children listen to the class teacher read a section of the book and follow along. It is important that the reading done here is by the adult as this means that pupils get to hear the story being read with fluency and expression which gives them an overall better comprehension of the text. There will be other times throughout the day/week for children to read parts of the class novel.
Step 5 – Clarify/Vocabulary
Based on what the pupils have just read they will clarify unknown vocabulary. This vocabulary may be chosen by the class teacher or it may be suggestions from the children themselves.
Step 6 – New Learning
At this stage, class teachers will teach children a new comprehension skill. They will look at pulling apart different style comprehension questions and teach them how they need to approach and answer certain styles of questions. During this part of the lesson, there may be a mixture of modelled, guided and independent learning.
Step 7 – Summarise and Reflect
For the final part of the lesson children will summarise what has happened in that day’s section of the text and reflect on the story so far.
At the end of a class novel, children will review their book and share their personal thoughts and opinions on the text.
We are aware that for some of our children our approach needs to be adapted to meet their needs, we do this in a number of ways including some key stage two children having daily Read, Write, Inc lessons in replace of their class lesson.
Reading Impact
As a school, we use both formative and summative assessment data collecting and information gathering in reading. Assessment informs learning to ensure that all pupils including disadvantage and those with SEND achieve highly and acquire the knowledge, skills and concepts they need to succeed in life. Staff use assessment information to inform their planning and address any common misconceptions that have arisen. This helps us provide the best possible support for all of our pupils.
Our curriculum in reading leads to pupils’ successful learning. Pupils are well prepared for the next steps and stages of their learning due to the progressive and well-sequenced curriculum. As a result, pupils make progress, they know more and remember more as they move through the English reading curriculum.
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