Reading has a high profile at St Mary’s Primary School and Nursery. It is the key to effective learning. Children are encouraged to appreciate books, to read independently, to make good progress and to take immense pleasure in reading.

Our reading curriculum aims to:

• Develop and nurture an enjoyment and desire for reading.

-      High quality, language rich books are used as a stimulus for reading (and writing) lessons.

-      Stories are routinely read to children by a variety of adults in different contexts.

-      Children are exposed to a wide range of stimulating text types in their class and school library.

-      Pupils are given opportunities to apply their reading skills to real life contexts across the curriculum such as through diagrams, instructions, fact files and non-fiction texts.

• Develop independent and reflective readers who can read fluently for meaning.

-      There is a focus on pupils’ fluency and reading stamina so children are able to read and comprehend challenging texts for longer periods of time.

-      Little Wandle is used as a highly systematic phonics first and fast approach to the teaching of early reading, ensuring children learn to decode accurately and with automaticity so that they can concentrate on drawing meaning form the texts they read.

-      There is explicit and progressive teaching of comprehension skills that enable children to access, understand and interpret what they read.

• Develop children who are language rich.

-      Teachers ensure there are rich opportunities for purposeful book talk during reading lessons.

-      Across the curriculum, children are systematically supported to build a wide and varied vocabulary.

Reading Policy

INTENT – The Aims of the Reading Curriculum

Reading has a high profile at St Mary’s Primary School and Nursery. It is the key to effective learning. Children are encouraged to appreciate books, to read independently, to make good progress and to take immense pleasure in reading.

Our reading curriculum aims to:

• Develop and nurture an enjoyment and desire for reading.

-     High quality, language rich books are used as a stimulus for reading (and writing) lessons.

-     Stories are routinely read to children by a variety of adults in different contexts.

-     Children are exposed to a wide range of stimulating text types in their class and school library.

-     Pupils are given opportunities to apply their reading skills to real life contexts across the curriculum such as through diagrams, instructions, fact files and non-fiction texts.

• Develop independent and reflective readers who can read fluently for meaning.

-     There is a focus on pupils’ fluency and reading stamina so children are able to read and comprehend challenging texts for longer periods of time.

-     Little Wandle is used as a highly systematic phonics first and fast approach to the teaching of early reading, ensuring children learn to decode accurately and with automaticity so that they can concentrate on drawing meaning form the texts they read.

-     There is explicit and progressive teaching of comprehension skills that enable children to access, understand and interpret what they read.

• Develop children who are language rich.

-     Teachers ensure there are rich opportunities for purposeful book talk during reading lessons.

-     Across the curriculum, children are systematically supported to build a wide and varied vocabulary.

IMPLEMENTATION of the St Mary’s Primary School and Nursery Reading Curriculum

Reading in its entirety is a key priority at St Mary’s Primary and is at the centre of all that we do. Teachers promote its enjoyment and importance in all aspects of our curriculum and across the school day. Teachers invest time in reading aloud to pupils in all year groups, from Nursery to Year 6, as well as discussing books they have enjoyed reading themselves. Initiatives are used throughout the school, to help keep pupils motivated and engaged.

Our reading curriculum has been carefully planned by the teaching staff as a whole to ensure progression in the following areas: decoding, comprehension and fluency.

The teaching of phonics

The teaching of early reading at St Mary’s Primary is of paramount importance. At St Mary’s, we continue to develop a team of expert reading teachers who teach early reading and phonics with fidelity and passion every day without fail.

We follow the Little Wandle systematic synthetic phonics programme, which includes the use of fully decodable books that align with the order in which sounds are taught in daily phonics lessons. We have also invested in providing our children with fully decodable books to take home to read and enjoy with adults in their families. This helps pupils to rehearse their application of phonic knowledge in a meaningful way that builds fluency. It also enables parents/carers to play an active part in children’s early acquisition of reading skills. Any pupil, regardless of age, who face challenges in learning to read is provided with high quality, one-to-one or small group Little wandle phonics tutoring every day by staff who are trained in leading reading interventions. This allows children to ‘keep up’ with the expected pace of learning rather than having to catch up’.

Reading in Reception

As well as the daily teaching of phonics as the route into decoding, in our Reception class all children have three dedicated reading sessions each week focusing on vocabulary, prosody (reading with expression) and comprehension. Identified children also read individually with an adult weekly.

We also take active steps to foster a love of reading from the outset. Classrooms have a child friendly and welcoming book corner and books are also available in other areas of the classroom and in the outdoor learning environment as well. Reading materials include: stories to read to the dolls/creatures in the roleplay area; books about engineering, bridges and buildings in the construction area; information books about minibeasts in the discovery area for example. Books are an integral part of the Reception setting and reading and book talk is an important part of the environment. When new topics/enquiries arise, children access information books to enhance the topics or search for information. We provide pupils with reasons to read. For example, adults will often scribe a story for a child and encourage them to read back through their writing. Children are encouraged to, alongside their decodable phonics book, take home a Reading for Pleasure book to share and enjoy reading together at home.

Carefully chosen books form the St Mary’s Reading Spine. These books are read daily to the children and are accessible at all times for children to enjoy.

Reading in Year 1

In Year 1, as well as the teaching of phonics there is a focus on developing children’s oral comprehension and reading for enjoyment.

All children have an opportunity to read individually with an adult at least once a week. This allows teachers to support children’s individual reading needs. During English lessons, teaching teams look for opportunities to deepen ‘book talk’ and to develop children’s spoken vocabulary. In Year 1 all children have three dedicated reading sessions each week focusing on vocabulary, prosody (reading with expression) and comprehension. Identified children also read individually with an adult weekly.

Carefully chosen books form the St Mary’s Reading Spine. These books are read daily to the children and are accessible at all times for children to enjoy.

Reading in Years 2, 3 – 6 (Key Stage 2)

In Year 2 and Key Stage 2 children take part in a daily whole class reading lesson. The content of these lessons has been carefully planned by our staff team to ensure that the needs of our children are fully met. Each week, a section of text taken from Fred’s Reading Scheme is chosen as the focus for the reading lessons for the week.

When planning reading lessons teachers follow a set structure:

• Monday: Monday’s lesson is based on the class novel. Summarising key moments or events, making predictions, reading together, and in-depth discussions.

• Tuesday: The focus of the Tuesday reading lesson is developing children’s fluency and reading stamina. Teachers employ a range of different strategies to support children to become fluent readers. Time is dedicated to encouraging children to pause in the correct places, and to read with expression and appropriate pace. Short retrieval questions are carried out at the end of the lesson in the form of a quiz/short answer session

• Wednesday: During the reading lesson on Wednesday, teachers plan activities to broaden children’s vocabulary. Children spend time discovering the meaning of unknown/unfamiliar words and teachers model strategies that the children can use to work out the meaning of words at the point of reading.

• Thursday: Thursday’s reading lesson focuses on developing children’s ability to answer questions about a text. Teachers take a particular comprehension skill (for example inferring meaning, summarising sections of text, explaining the impact of word choices etc.) and teach children how to gather the information needed to respond to questions that assess their ability to be able to draw meaning from the materials they read.

• Friday: This lesson is used to complete comprehension activities, using either the class novel or an ‘at distance’ extract. Children work individually or in groups, with support as appropriate.

Books that the children take home are carefully chosen to match the children’s interests and their level of fluency. In Year 2-6, once the children are able to read all the phonetically decodable books they then move onto the Accelerated Reader scheme.

Additionally, each class, each term, has a class novel which forms the ‘St Mary’s Reading Spine’. All children will engage with this carefully selected novel daily throughout the term focusing on fluency, content and enjoyment.

Provision for children with SEND and those who are working below the level expected for their age

Children who are reading at a level below that expected for their age receive additional decoding and fluency interventions that are planned and monitored by their teacher and/or the SENCO and delivered by teaching assistants who have received training in the provision of reading support.

Reading fluency sessions use ‘echo reading’ as a strategy to help build children’s fluency. As appropriate pre-teaching is also used as a strategy to support inclusion and enable children with SEN to participate in whole class reading lessons. This includes a familiarisation session where key vocabulary is taught, the characters are introduced and the setting/context for the text is explored.

During class based reading lessons, reading activities are adjusted and scaffolds are put in place to ensure that children can independently complete as much of the activity as possible.

Those children for whom regular reading in school would support reading fluency, reading comprehension and/or support the development of a love of reading are read with regularly on a 1:1 basis.

Pupils working above the standard expected for their age

During reading lessons there will be a range of tasks that children need to complete, each becoming progressively more challenging. Teachers expect and support more able readers to complete all of the challenges set. Where appropriate, teachers will guide more able readers to skip initial challenges so that they start at the challenge level that will move their learning forward.

We have a number of reading enrichment activities, including:

• Reading Café, from term 3 in Reception. Parents and Carers are invited into school to read a handpicked story book with their child and engage in activities planned around the story theme.
• Bedtime stories in Reception and Key Stage 1, where the children come back to school and enjoy story time with their teacher and classmates, snuggled up in cosy nightclothes and a hot chocolate
• Regular book fairs from publishers of popular children's fiction and non fiction titles.
• Celebrations for World Book Week including competitions, class teachers reading to another class and lots of amazing costumes!
• Visit from the local library to promote the Summer Reading Challenge
• Incentives for reading widely at home
• Author visits and workshops
• Storyteller visits
• Reading Buddies – teaming up of older and younger classes to share favourite books together.
• Library lunch-time reading club

Measuring the IMPACT of the St Mary’s Primary School and Nursery Reading Curriculum

Assessment

Little Wandle provides detailed assessment procedures to ensure that all children on the programme make expected reading progress across Reception and KS1, and additional support is prioritised when a pupil starts to fall behind their peers. Teachers routinely complete Little Wandle assessments, and pupils’ progress is closely monitored by the school’s Early Reading Leader, who also monitors the teaching of reading.

Three times per year, standardised Reading Assessment (NFER) tests are used with pupils in Years 2 – 6 (and Year 1 in the summer term), to track progress and identify children who would benefit from additional support in reading. Alongside these reading comprehension assessments, teachers complete fluency checks and hold diagnostic reading conversations with pupils in their classes to build the detailed understanding of each child as a reader, required to facilitate effective next step planning of the reading curriculum.

Additionally, and equally importantly, the diagnostic reading discussions teachers and the Reading Leader hold with pupils, helps the school assess the impact of the reading curriculum children have accessed over time, because it is through such conversations that children’s enjoyment in and engagement with the literature, authors, and illustrators they have been introduced to, shines through.