English- Reading
At Thurlbear, we believe that developing children as expert and enthusiastic life-long readers is a fundamental entitlement for every individual pupil. Reading is a journey that starts with children learning to read and develops into children being able to read to learn. Reading is the key that opens many doors, and successful readers will have a head start in all that they do. At Thurlbear we recognise that being an expert reader is a key skill for every child that will enable them to achieve in all areas of their life. We believe that every child can learn to read and can develop a love for reading – with the right teaching and encouragement from enthusiastic, knowledgeable teachers. To achieve this, we place reading at the heart of our curriculum and have developed a clear and coherent whole school strategy for teaching the skills of reading and promoting reading for pleasure. To ensure that we are teaching reading in its fullest sense, we have separated the teaching of reading into 3 explicit strands, which are all interlinked: fluency, enjoyment and comprehension.
Intent: “Know the Way”
Enjoyment: To promote a love of reading, enriching pupils’ vocabulary, comprehension, and cultural capital.
From the very youngest to our oldest children, we aim to create a culture where books are valued, treasured and loved. By explicitly creating an environment where reading for pleasure is prioritised, we will develop a generation of children who have the independence, stamina and desire to devour books and be excited about literature. Carefully chosen age appropriate and challenging texts create our reading spines which we read to children throughout the school in each cohort. Fiction and non-fiction texts which link to foundation subjects are displayed and made accessible for children to deepen their knowledge and understanding of what they are learning. Reading displays are created to celebrate the variety of texts children have read together in class for pleasure; texts used in reading lessons; texts shared in worship and texts shared in relation to learning.
Fluency: To ensure all pupils acquire strong early reading and phonics skills, enabling them to develop into fluent, confident readers.
In order to love reading, children need the skills to access texts with automaticity and fluency. At Thurlbear, we follow our Unlocking Letters and Sounds programme, which is a systematic, synthetic and rigorous approach to teach decoding and word recognition skills from the moment a child starts their reading journey with us in reception. The teaching of fluency skills goes well beyond phonics and word recognition, and we continue to explicitly teach children to become fluent readers throughout their entire school journey, through structured fluency sessions and continuous modelling. We know that teaching reading fluency leads to improved comprehension and this, in turn, contributes to a love of reading.
Comprehension: To ensure all children read with understanding, enjoy a wide range of high-quality texts and have access to the full curriculum.
To be competent readers who can confidently access and enjoy texts, children must be fluent readers who can discuss the texts and comprehend what they are reading. At Thurlbear, we ensure we discuss books and expertly teach comprehension through a progression of skills so that children can access texts for both pleasure and information. In key stage 2 we ensure we consider the specific content domain taken from the KS2 reading framework. It is our intent that all children leave Thurlbear as competent, lifelong readers. Our carefully planned and sequenced reading curriculum strives to foster a lifelong love of reading, whilst also equipping children with the knowledge and skills to read fluently and accurately with good understanding.
Implementation: “Show the Way”
Fluency, comprehension and Enjoyment
Early reading is prioritised through our systematic synthetic phonics programme, Unlocking letters and sounds taught daily and matched to fully decodable books.
We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences. Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4. In Year 1 through Phase 5a, b and c, the children learn any alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes and additional common exception Words. By the end of Year 1, children will have mastered using phonics to decode and blend when reading and segment when spelling. In Year 1 all children are screened using the national phonics screening check. In Year 2, phonics continues to be revisited to ensure mastery of the phonetic code and any child who does not meet age related expectations will continue to receive support to close identified gaps. To ensure no child is left behind at any point in the progression, children are regularly assessed and supported to keep up through bespoke 1-1 interventions. These include GPC recognition and blending and segmenting interventions.
Reading is taught through guided reading, shared reading, whole-class reading, and individual reading, with explicit instruction in comprehension strategies.
We promote a ‘phonics first’ approach and in both our guided reading sessions at school and in the books children take home, texts are very closely matched to a child’s current phonics knowledge so that every child can experience real success in their reading. In these crucial early stages of reading we primarily use books from Ransom Reading Stars, to ensure complete fidelity to the phonic progression we follow. Once children progress beyond decodable texts, they move onto mastery books so that they can continue to progress in their decoding, fluency and comprehension skills to become avid, expert readers. They then move onto age appropriate books which have been carefully selected and are kept in year group libraries. Teachers regularly monitor a child’s reading fluency progress through reading sessions. Every child, who is not working at the expected standard will receive timely intervention and their progress will be closely monitored by class teachers, reading leads, SLT and the SENDCo.
Teachers model fluent reading, explicitly teach vocabulary, comprehension and regularly assess progress to provide timely support and intervention where needed.
Our curriculum map has been designed to build on children’s previous reading skills and knowledge and vocabulary is integral and progressive within our curriculum. We teach comprehension skills through a progression of skills, so that children can access texts for both pleasure and information. In EYFS and key stage 1 through class texts, and daily story time texts, teachers develop comprehension skills using book talk and expert questioning. During guided reading sessions the children will also develop their comprehension skills including being able to retell and make predictions. In key stage 2, teachers still use class texts and book talk to develop comprehension skills but alongside this Children will be taught to record responses to comprehension questions more formally and consider all areas of the reading content domains. The comprehension in these more formal sessions may be based around a whole book or using short extracts.
· Through our ambitious curriculum, we aim to create a culture where books are cherished. We endeavour to create an environment where reading for pleasure is prioritised to inspire children who have the independence, stamina and desire to read widely and be excited about literature.
To encourage this, we use a wide variety of quality texts and resources to motivate and inspire our children across the curriculum. Teacher’s read to children regularly, as we know that reading widely and sharing books feeds pupils’ imagination, vocabulary and knowledge of the world. Teachers encourage a love of reading, and a reading ethos through their classroom through daily story times, well organised book corners and displays. We have designed a reading for pleasure spine, so that each year group has a selection of core texts that a child will encounter during their time at Thurlbear. These high-quality texts have been carefully selected to ensure a breadth of experiences, authors, and themes across the primary years. As well as providing joyful literary experiences, these texts include diverse representation, relevant social issues, big ethical questions and moral dilemmas.
We celebrate and promote reading every day, as well as providing enrichment days, trips and events linked to reading throughout the school year that aim to inspire and enthuse our children. Some of these include: weekly reading buddies across the school, World Book Day, National Poetry Day, visiting storytellers and theatre companies telling well known stories, and visits from authors, poets and illustrators. At Thurlbear, we nurture the attitudes and behaviours our children will need to become passionate, confident readers, who read frequently and widely for pleasure and information. We empower our children to exercise freedoms of choice and independence when selecting books for themselves.
· Oracy and Vocabulary Acquisition
The teaching of vocabulary and the acquisition of language is a school priority as we recognise that pupil’s acquisition and command of vocabulary are key to their learning and progress, across the curriculum. Vocabulary forms a key part of all planning, teaching and learning. High quality texts are read aloud to children daily across the school and are chosen to expose children to a rich and varied vocabulary. Teaches plan explicit time in lessons to explore words and develop vocabulary as well as being a focus in all curriculum areas. At the start of a topic, key and new vocabulary, is shared with the children. The recall, understanding and application of prior vocabulary acquisition, as well as new vocabulary learnt, is frequently revisited to embed this language. The learning environment is used to ensure vocabulary is celebrated and accessible, with visual cues to support children with any language, communication or interaction difficulties.
We recognise the importance of ensuring the continual development of pupils’ confidence and competence in spoken language and listening skills. Our philosophy and intent for our children’s oracy and communication align with the view from Voice 21: “In school, oracy is a powerful tool for learning; by teaching students to become more effective speakers and listeners we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. It is also a route to social mobility, empowering all students, not just some, to find their voice to succeed in school and life.’
Communication and language development is at the heart of our EYFS curriculum and we prioritise high quality interactions help to develop children’s communication and language. Listening skills are explicitly taught and modelled. We use the Oracy framework to support our delivery of oracy education and strategies such as learning partners, modelling, drama, discussion and debate are used across the school to promote the use of spoken language.
Assessment:
· Teachers assess the children against the EYFS profile, the end of KS1 and end of KS2 frameworks and carefully written end of year expectations throughout the school.
· ULS phonic assessments are carried out from start of reception and for all children until they complete the phonic scheme.
· Comprehension daily assessments are carried out through oral questioning and responses, either in whole class reading sessions, guided groups or one to one reading. It is also assessed through more formal written responses to questions in comprehension sessions or written responses during English lessons.
· PIRA assessments are carried out for children in years 2, 3, 4, 5. They are used to support teacher judgement when assessing attainment and progress over the year.
· Teachers have good understanding of what the expected and depth standards looks like at the end of each year of a child’s primary education.
Impact: “Grow the Way”
Children will:
Pupils read accurately, fluently, and with good understanding, applying their skills confidently across the curriculum.
Gaps in reading achievement are quickly identified and reduced, ensuring all pupils make strong progress, including disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND.
Pupils leave primary school as enthusiastic, independent readers, well prepared for secondary education and lifelong learning
Parents and carers will have a good understanding of how they can support reading at home, and contribute regularly to home-school record.
The impact of our English curriculum is reviewed and monitored regularly through:
Learning walks and lesson observations
Book monitoring
Discussions with class teachers, teaching assistants and pupils.
Formative and summative assessment data analysis
Monitoring interventions