Reading
Intent:
At St Luke’s Catholic Primary School, we are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become competent and successful readers who develop a genuine love of reading. Reading skills are the key determining factor for a child’s future academic success and reaching their full potential (World Literacy Foundation) and as we are committed to encouraging our pupils to become lifelong readers, reading lies at the heart of our curriculum. Reading is a priority so that all of our pupils can access the full curriculum.
We provide language-rich classroom environments and a curriculum where children are exposed to high quality language in a variety of forms.
Implementation:
At St Luke’s, we want our children to develop a love of reading and a good knowledge of a range of authors.
Whole Class Reading (WCR)
Our pupils’ reading journey starts in EYFS where they are taught Phonics using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics scheme. Phonics lessons continue in Year 1 and for some in Year 2, where children work, at their own pace, through the different phases. In Year 2, this is complimented by Little Wandle’s Fluency scheme of work.
Whole Class Reading sessions take place in KS2, in addition to daily English lessons. Teaching reading to the whole class means that children of all attainment bands are immersed in the same high-quality literature and discussions that these texts promote (Crosby, DM).
On a Monday and a Friday, the WCR sessions focus on the class novel. Monday’s WCR session is an opportunity for children to recap what has been read so far in their text and involves explanation-based questions to allow pupils to explore authorial intent. Friday’s WCR session focuses on the skills of prediction, summary and sequencing.
The WCR lessons on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday allow children to explore three different texts that link together with a theme. This is often linked to other areas of the curriculum, for example Space or Around the World. Tasks may include activities to focus on key skills for reading:
- Literal skills (answers can be directly lifted from the text)
- Deductive skills (the text does not directly give the answer but we can work things out from the information given)
- Inferential skills (the text does not directly tell us the answer but we can work things out by considering the hints and clues in the text in light of our own knowledge and experiences)
- Evaluative skills (giving personal opinions, often about whole texts, or successes of author in creating mood, character etc…)
Shared Reading
The whole class shares a text, which is beyond their independent reading levels. The class novel should be challenging. The children should be able to access it, but it should be a text that many of the class could not sit and read cover to cover independently. Shared reading provides a context for teacher modelling, teaching and applying reading skills. Teachers read to their class for 15 minutes every day.
Whole Class Story Time
At St Luke’s Catholic Primary School, regular whole class story time takes place in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. Quality texts are selected for enjoyment, appropriate to topic work or to support objectives covered in the English lesson and are read aloud by the teacher. These sessions also allow the teacher to check a child’s comprehension, by asking literal and inferential questions, which aid deeper understanding of the plot and themes of the story, also increasing their vocabulary. Listening to a story promotes the enjoyment of story- telling and reading.
At St Luke’s, ‘Reading for Pleasure’ is at the heart of our reading policy. Throughout the year, events are planned to promote reading for pleasure in the school community and within our classes, children are regularly given time to independently read a book of their choice. The reading areas in each classroom are a stimulating and attractive environment. They are designed to engage the pupils and inspire them to read. They contain a range of reading material and pupils are actively involved in the management of the reading corner.
We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop their reading skills. We encourage daily reading at home by sending home reading books from our reading scheme. Parents and carers have the opportunity to record comments about their child’s reading using reading records in EYFS, KS1 and Lower KS2.
Impact:
Children will leave St Luke’s as competent, confident and independent readers who possess a genuine love of reading.
We work with other schools within FAVSP to moderate planning, lessons and books; ensuring that progress is being made across all year groups. Assessment for learning is ongoing and our staff assess attainment in reading regularly, through both formative and summative methods. Children read regularly to adults in school and complete summative assessments at the end of each term.
The teaching of reading is monitored by leaders through learning walks, book scrutinies and Pupil and Teacher Voice.
Please click here to see our class novel overview.
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) developed for schools by schools. Based on the original Letters and Sounds, but extensively revised to provide a complete teaching programme meeting all the expectations of the National Curriculum and preparing children to go beyond the expectations of the Phonics Screening Check.
Please visit our dedicated Phonics page for further details about this scheme.