At St Paul's CE Primary School, we passionately believe that learning to read and enjoy reading are fundamental rights in all children’s lives. We firmly believe that it is our moral duty that those children in our care are taught how to read and how to understand what they have read, linking it to their own lives and experiences. Studies have shown that children who read well achieve more, do better in all subjects, experience better wellbeing and succeed more in life beyond school. At St. Paul's, we strive to teach all children to become confident, fluent readers who are comfortable in their ability to read to learn and want to read for pleasure.
It is our intention that the reading curriculum at St Paul’s CE Primary inspires and engages children to develop knowledge of books and authors, key reading skills and ‘a love’ of reading and books which they will rely on throughout their lives. Through promoting a love of reading, children are encouraged to become lifelong readers and to see that reading can evoke feelings of wonder, intrigue, transporting them to other worlds and times and enhancing their knowledge about a range of topics and themes.
Guided Reading
It is important that multiple opportunities are provided for children to apply their phonics knowledge and skills in a language-rich environment. For this reason, children in Reception and Year 1 are organised into guided reading groups so they can practice reading a ‘decodable’ book or text with the support of an adult and peers. We select text from books that best match the grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) that the group knows, and take into account the children’s ability to blend the sounds in unfamiliar words. Re-readings take place to increase the number of words that children can read ‘at a glance’, and to discuss the plot, characters and their motives.
From Year 2 to Year 6, guided reading sessions are with the whole class using the same text. Whole class texts have been specifically selected for each year group and term as they link to the wider curriculum of that year group. Comprehension lessons, as part of the English blocks and in stand-alone lessons, focus on building independence and collaboration, identifying question types and learning the coinciding steps-to-success. Following the national curriculum, the reading curriculum progresses clearly throughout the year groups as the focus develops from simple retrieval skills to well-developed inference and explanation.
Curriculum
At St Paul’s, our reading curriculum is incorporated into all lessons as children use their skills taught in comprehension to retrieve, infer and explain key information in subjects such as history, geography and science. It is our aim that the books we read represent the diversity in our school, our community and the UK today, linking our children’s heritages and cultural experiences wherever possible and enabling children to see themselves in the books that we both study and read for enjoyment.
Reading is a vehicle for oracy, discussion and development of presentation skills, allowing children to make and justify their choices, express opinions and develop a sense of individual achievement. Reading provides a clear base for development of writing, as children become familiar with genres (and their features), similar stories and author voice and the impact on the reader.
Our annual Book Week, held in March, will allow children to interact creatively with the texts and authors they read. The bookworms, our reading pupils voice group, lead on activities to promote a love of reading, ensuring children care for books and sharing ways to talk about books and reading. Authors are looked at in detail so children have a repertoire of writers which they can refer back to when they want to expand their love of reading. These authors will represent different religions, races, genders and ethnicities to ensure all children at St Paul’s feel represented in the books they read, their own experiences mirrored and addressed.
Beginning with the key text, prose or poetry, the children are encouraged to explore and perform the text before analysing vocabulary and author voice then answer questions to show clear comprehension. Children use these skills and their own knowledge to make connections with their learning across the curriculum including in history, geography, science and art in order to better comprehend a wide-range of subject matter.
Children will have clear enjoyment and confidence in reading, which they will then apply to other areas of the curriculum, and their wider lives. Through carefully planned texts and launching of these texts, children will have an excitement around reading as they become confident choosing their own favourite genres and writing styles. Having read a range of authors, genres and text types, children will become fluent readers of poetry, narratives and non-fiction information types, becoming able to identify the genre required for their needs, or for their interests.
Pupil’s skills and knowledge, when assessed by the class teacher as part of an ongoing process, throughout lessons, will show that they build on previous skills and knowledge. More formal assessment such as reading check ins and written comprehension, alongside more informal child interviews show progress over time. Careful questioning and planning of child-led discussions will support the Reading leader in measuring impact and will enable the class teacher and curriculum lead to measure impact and adapt planning, texts and support where necessary.
St Paul’s sees reading as the cornerstone of engagement in the curriculum and a powerful skill which enables children to progress in the world and is committed to ensuring that all children make the very best progress possible, from their starting points, to enable them to be the best readers possible as they move to secondary school and into adult life.
Long term plans, showing the progression of skills and knowledge and the content taught in Reading can be found below:
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