Reading

Overview

Curriculum Aims

The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language

• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas

• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.
• The programmes of study for reading at key stages 1 and 2 consist of two dimensions: – word reading

– comprehension (both listening and reading).

The national curriculum states that ‘It is essential that, by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education.’

The Reading Framework

Intent, Implementation and Impact

Reading curriculum intent, implementation & impact.

Intent

At East Dene, our goal is that all children leave us with a passion for reading and that reading becomes a life-long skill. Reading provides children not only with an essential life skill but gives children an emotional understanding of the world, which is necessary to navigate life successfully. We also want all of our children to go on to academic success in secondary school and being a strong reader provides children with the foundations to be able to do this.

We want all of our children to have a rich diet of reading and we aim to ensure that every child has access to a wide range of texts through careful selection of fiction and non-fiction texts. This rich diet ensures that every child can foster a love of reading and discover texts that they truly love. The texts that we study and share with the children are progressive in terms of Lexile count and in the themes in the texts become more complex throughout school.

Reading for enjoyment is something that is in the heart of East Dene. Every child in school is part of their own reading for enjoyment journey, which will continue after they leave primary school.

Our main aims in reading:

• Develop children’s phonetical knowledge and learn to read using the Read, Write, Inc phonics scheme.
• Build on the work of the phonics scheme by providing ample opportunity for children to read fluently and build automaticity.
• Develop children’s confidence and understanding of texts through continual attention to read accurately and with intonation to read aloud and to themselves.
• Offer children access to a wide range of texts so that they are able to tackle more complex vocabulary in the wider curriculum with ease.
• Develop children’s linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar and how this contributes to reading for meaning.
• Expose children to literature that develops a deeper level of emotional intelligence and empathy. Texts will include those written by diverse authors, set in different countries, reference different time periods and books that have been written in the past so they are familiar with an old style of language.

Implementation

Children must learn to read before they can read to learn. The teaching of early reading and phonics focuses on developing children’s phonetic skills in order to segment and blend to develop fluent readers through the implementation of the Read Write Inc. programme.

When children have completed the phonics programme, children are taught using whole-class reading using a novel that is appropriate to their year group. During these sessions, a range of strategies are used to build a reader’s fluency such as model, echo, choral, paired and repeated reading. Children will then be taught a reading skill from the progression document, following the DERIC skill. The chosen skill will be broken down and a specific question style will be explored in order for children to fully understand that area of reading. In addition to this, children will explore a well-chosen poem or a non-fiction text to broaden their reading experiences apply the DERIC skills to different types of texts.

Every other week, children are taught a ‘Let’s think in English’ session. This programme promotes children thinking skills using texts and videos as stimuli to develop different reasoning patterns: intentions and consequences, frames of reference, narrative sequencing, symbolism and classification.

Once a fortnight, KS2 children have a library session where there is a chance for children to read their book for enjoyment in a quiet environment, explore alternative books and make recommendations to each other using their class scrapbook.

Every afternoon, children are read to during shared read times, where carefully chosen books are read by an adult to provide children with a model read and children can fully immerse themselves and enjoy the text. Research shows that children who hear a book read to them have a higher reading level and a more complex vocabulary than those who do not. These shared read books are available for children to re-read at their leisure.

Children are encouraged to take 2 reading books home. In KS1, children take a phonic, decodable book home and a dream read book, which is to be shared by an adult. In KS2, those children who have completed the phonics scheme take home a coloured book appropriate to their fluency/understanding level and a reading for enjoyment book, which may be shared by an adult if necessary. Children are encouraged for reading 4 times per week and are rewarded for doing so.

Through teacher assessment, individuals or groups of children will be targeted for reading interventions with themselves or teaching assistants to address any gaps in phonetic knowledge, to improve their fluency or to improve their comprehension and understanding of texts.

Impact

At East Dene, we want every child to fulfil their potential by making at least good progress from their own starting point so that they are able to read accurately, confidently, fluently and with understanding across a wide range of texts and are ready for the demands of the secondary curriculum when they leave primary school. Furthermore, all children will have developed a life-long love of reading, have a wide understanding of books from different authors, genres, cultures and styles and, as they move forward, will be able to access reading material across all aspects of life from travel brochures to job adverts or academic texts.

In addition to this, we want to ensure that there are no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged).

Cultural Capital

At East Dene Primary, reading plays a central role in developing children’s cultural capital. Through the careful selection of books,
children are exposed to a variety of diverse texts which explore a range of different cultures, traditions, viewpoints and themes.
Exploration of these texts develop pupils’ background knowledge of not only their own communities and experiences but the experiences of others, enabling children to develop a sense of empathy for a wide range of people. By fostering a love of reading through our curriculum and reading challenges, we equip all pupils with the vocabulary, knowledge and cultural awareness they need to become informed, confident and successful future citizens.

Progress Models

 Year 1

Year 2

Year 3 & 4

Year 5 & 6

Concepts

In reading, there are 5 key concepts that all work together to create the reading experience: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. As children move through primary school, they develop skills in all 5 of these areas to be successful readers.

Reading Challenges

Our Reading Challenges are an opportunity to increase children’s range of books they can Read for Pleasure.

• The books have been selected to be accessible. For instance, including picture books and graphic novels in the challenge which are less intimidating for less able readers.
• Some reading challenge books have been chosen because they link to previous reads. For example,’ My name is Mina’ links to Skellig, which Y6 read in their shared read sessions early in the year.
• There are also books that offer vital moral messages such as ‘once upon a raindrop’ or ‘one last rhino’.
• The Reading Challenge also offers a Classic books that have been written decades ago, offering children a different style of language.
• Some books have simply been chosen because they are enjoyable to read, such as ‘the witches’ and ‘fluff the farting fish’. Our aim with the reading challenge is for children to read for pleasure widely.

Reading Framework

Examples of planning

Useful Links

Glossary