Reading at Carville Primary School

Children are taught explicit reading skills from the very start of their learning journey in Early Years. Children work towards Early Learning Goals (ELGs) in both word reading and comprehension. They are taught using Read Write Inc. to use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and to read them aloud accurately. Applying these skills, children by the end of Reception will be able to read simple sentences and books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge. Children in Early Years are regularly exposed to high quality texts and opportunities for adult led ‘book talk’ in order to develop their early reading comprehension skills.

For pupils at an early Key Stage 1 phase (Year 1), teaching will be focussed on establishing and developing phonic skills, vocabulary and a basic understanding of content meaning in a group environment.

Pupils at a later Key Stage 1 phase (Year 2) will continue developing these skills whilst taking on more complex words, grammar and texts. Pupils are increasingly encouraged to read independently at allocated times to help develop an enjoyment for reading.

At Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) pupils continue to consolidate and embed their decoding skills, building up automaticity and fluency. Alongside this, there is a strong focus on comprehension, where pupils are taught key skills for developing their understanding of texts that they have read. Greater independence is encouraged in this age group to allow the development of attitudes and individual understandings of what they read.

Upper Key Stage 2 pupils (Years 5 and 6) will continue to develop their wider vocabulary and focus on diversifying their reading repertoire to multiple text types and styles. Alongside independent silent reading, group discussions take place with suitable supervision so pupils can share opinions on what they have read.

Following the publication of the ‘EEF Improving Literacy in KS2’ guidance report (April 2017), teachers have been trained in delivering activities to develop language capability, fluency and reading comprehension strategies.

Within classrooms, purposeful activities will include:

Language capability

• reading books aloud and discussing them;
• activities that extend pupils’ expressive and receptive vocabulary;
• collaborative learning activities where pupils can share their thought processes;
• structured questioning to develop reading comprehension;
• teachers modelling inference-making by thinking aloud;
• pupils articulating their ideas verbally before they start writing.

Fluency

This can be developed through:

• guided oral reading instruction—teachers model fluent reading of a text, then pupils read the same text aloud with appropriate feedback;
• repeated reading—pupils reread a short and meaningful passage a set number of times or until they reach a suitable level of fluency

Teachers model the reading comprehension strategies for prediction, questioning, clarifying, summarising, inference and activating prior knowledge during shared and guided reading sessions, whilst children have the opportunity to develop reading strategies and to discuss texts in detail during whole class reading sessions. Independent reading provides time for both assessment and 1-1 teaching.

English Curriculum

Our English curriculum follows a Reading into Writing approach. Pupils begin each unit of learning by exploring a range of examples of the chosen text type, studying their key features and becoming familiar with the intended purpose and audience for the text. Children are then taught how to use and apply these features to produce their own piece of writing in the style of the genre/text type.

High quality texts for each unit have been chosen to ensure pupils are exposed to a range of authors, writing styles, text types and genres.

Systematic Synthetic Phonics

At Carville Primary School, we use Read Write Inc. as our systematic approach to teach children to read in Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Year 3. In daily phonics lessons, children are introduced to the ‘Alphabetic Code’. They systematically build up their recognition of phoneme-grapheme correspondences and apply these to decode regular words and read them aloud. Children are then given opportunities to practice and apply their knowledge, reading short sentences and reading books matched to their individual phonic ability. Regular assessment ensures children who need additional support are identified quickly and are given extra opportunities to practice with an adult.

The decision to continue this phonics approach into Year 3 allows children to embed and consolidate their phonic knowledge, whilst also supporting children who may not have met the expected standard in their Phonic Screening Check in Key Stage 1. More-able children are challenged with increasingly more complex decoding, as well as using phonics to support their spelling.

Guided Reading

A thirty-minute guided reading session takes place three times a week in school for KS2 children. During each session, teachers will work with a group of children to analyse a text in detail, making sure each child can read each word and discussing meaning of the text with them. Independent tasks focus on comprehension skills such as prediction, summarising, vocabulary and inference.

Home/school reading

All children at Carville Primary School are given a school satchel to take home each night containing a phonics file, reading books and a reading record.

Pupils in Reception, Key Stage 1 and Year 3 take home a levelled Read Write Inc book from school matched to their current stage of learning in phonics and a 'Book Bag book' from the previous stage. Children are encouraged to re-read thes books regularly in order to practise sounds that are being learned in their phonics sessions/interventions and overlearn known sounds. Children also choose a 'reading for pleasure' book to take home to develop their own interests and encourage ‘book talk’ with others at home. Reading activities should be carried out every night and recorded on Boom Reader.

Pupils in Key Stage 2 use a reading system called Accelerated Reader. Based on individual reading assessments, pupils are assigned a level range to select their own books that are matched to their reading ability. Once children have read their book, they complete online quizzes to assess comprehension and allow their teacher to monitor their progress. As well as their levelled Accelerated Reader book, children take home a self-chosen ‘reading for pleasure’ book to enjoy.

Parents are encouraged to hear their child read the book and then record how they have got on in their home-school reading record. Parents are expected to read with their child daily.

All staff support reading activities to ensure that children have more frequent opportunities to read with adults.

Reading for Pleasure

As well as teaching children the mechanics of reading, we aim to inspire and foster a love of reading as an enjoyable activity. Children at Carville Primary School are encouraged to pursue their own interests in reading material and enjoy reading text types that appeal to them the most, whether this be picture books, magazines, graphic novels or longer chapter books.

Pupils have the opportunity to choose a book to read for pleasure from book corners within their classroom and our well-stocked school library. Books in school are regularly updated to include popular authors, recommended reads and recent releases.

Pupils are encouraged to join their local public libraries and become enthused by reading. At Carville Primary School, we recognise the value of adults (both in school and at home) reading aloud to children, in order to improve their grasp of story language, enthuse them with a love of books and inspire them as writers. Allocated daily reading for pleasure time every school day allows children to listen to their teacher read out loud and enjoy a story together as a class.