Intent

“A solid foundation in reading is crucial to a child’s success as they progress through primary school, into secondary school and then in later life and is the basic building block for learning.”

Our aim is to prepare children with the skills and provide the opportunities to create a life-long love of reading. For children to access a progressive range of texts and authors to expose them to new life experiences and build upon their own knowledge of the world and the language they use in everyday life – allowing them to flourish within other areas of the curriculum and wider life.

Here are some pictures of reading spaces around our school. We are soon to have an outdoor reading space as well, which we are very excited about! 

Implementation

All children in Year 2 and KS2 accessing daily whole class Guided Reading sessions. Reading is on a bi-weekly rota: between Reading Gems and Cracking Comprehension.

Reading gems break down all of the skills needed to comprehend texts to support children in understanding all elements of what they are reading – equipping them with the necessary comprehension skills at their level. Lessons to be engaging and creative encouraging a love of reading.

Cracking Comprehension and PM benchmarking used to assess children’s reading attainment regularly using age appropriate texts; used by teachers to tailor gem work based on gaps in learning as well as Daily Reading interventions.

Talk through stories implemented in Nursery – Year 1 to model fluent reading and comprehension of well-loved, meaningful texts. Focus language picked out within this planning broadens children’s vocabulary supporting their understanding of other texts and allows them to utilise it within their Writing. In other year groups, class stories, with focus authors and books, engages children with a range of texts and authors as well as modelling high quality reading of progressively challenging texts.

Reading at home - Children will bring home a book appropriate to their reading level. This will either be a Monster Phonics Stage book or one chosen using the 5 finger rule. All children with a Monster Phonics Stage book will bring home another book of free choice for enjoyment as well. CPG phonics (KS1) and comprehension books (KS2) are also sent home for children to independently practise an age appropriate comprehension on a weekly basis.

Each class has a Reading Challenge, which they can participating by reading five times a week at home. They then get entered into a raffle for a book prize once is has been completed! 

Websites

Book recommendations for every year group : https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/category/reading-lists-for-primary-school-pupils/