Reading
Intent
At Roehampton Church School, our aim is for children to view reading as an enjoyable and worthwhile activity and develop a love of reading. We want them to become fluent and confident readers who can read a wide range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts.
We believe that reading is a fundamental skill which enables children to access all areas of learning, ensuring they can make progress and succeed. Children read in as many situations as possible, not just in reading lessons. All children read and are read to regularly so that they develop a love of reading.
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
By the end of EYFS, children will be able to read and understand simple sentences. They will use phonetic knowledge to decode regular words and read them accurately. They will also be able to read some irregular words. They will recognise familiar words and signs, look at books independently and demonstrate understanding with others about what they have read.
Year 1
By the end of Year 1, children will apply their phonic knowledge and skills to decode words. They will read accurately by blending sounds unfamiliar to them. They will read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and re-read these books to build up their fluency and confidence in reading own work.
They will understand what they have read, in books they have read independently, by drawing on previous knowledge or background information and vocabulary provided by the teacher. They will make inferences, predictions and participate in discussion about what has been read.
Key Stage 1 (KS1)
By the end of KS1, children will continue to apply phonics knowledge and skills to decode words until automatic decoding is embedded and reading is fluent. They will read aloud books closely matched to their improving phonic knowledge, sounding out unfamiliar words.
Children will discuss and express views on a wide range of contemporary and classic poetry, stories and non-fiction at a level beyond that at which they can read independently. They will also discuss the sequence of events in books and become increasingly familiar with retelling a wider range of stories. They will clarify the meaning of words. Children will make inferences about what is said and done, ask questions, predict what may happen, and explain their understanding of a text.
Key Stage 2 (KS2)
By the end of KS2, children will continue to read and discuss an increasingly wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books. They will be able to recommend books that they have read to their peers, giving reasons for their choices. They will be able to identify and discuss theme and conventions in and across a wide range of writing, making comparisons within and across books. Children will be able to distinguish between fact and opinion. They will be able to explain and discuss their understanding of what they have read, through formal presentations and debates, maintaining a focus on the topic and provide reasoned justifications for their views.
Implementation
At Roehampton Church School, reading is at the heart of our curriculum and our aim is to encourage a love of reading right from the start. Phonics and reading skills are taught during daily whole class lessons, so that all children have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. Please see our Phonics and Early Reading Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement for more information.
Within reading lessons, teachers and teaching assistants target support for a range of abilities to enable pupils to achieve an age-related level wherever possible. Teachers strive to provide more regular reading opportunities for pupils with difficulties in this area and to ensure that they have access to any resources that may help them such as reading rulers or coloured overlays. Please see our SEND/Equality Statement of Intent/Implementation for more information on ways in which we seek to ensure that all pupils have opportunities to succeed across the curriculum (hyperlink). Pupils who are able to confidently achieve age-related levels, are also given opportunities to demonstrate a greater depth of understanding through extended answers, targeted questioning requiring more reasoned answers and making greater links across and between texts.
During Key Stage 1, children move from the decoding stage to comprehension. As they progress through the key stage, their books move away from being matched to their phonic level and towards reading for understanding.
In Year 2 children take part in whole class reading lessons. We use Reading VIPERS to focus on the skills of Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explain, Retrieve and Sequence (hyperlink to reading progression VIPERS document). Throughout Key Stage 1, children access books matched to their reading ability in order to read independently.
In Key Stage 2, children continue to take part in whole class reading lessons with high-quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts. The focus continues to be on VIPERS, with Summarise replacing Sequence. At this stage it becomes vitally important that children use evidence from the text to justify their thoughts, opinions and ideas. A wide range of effective questioning will be used during class discussions to challenge, probe and extend children’s understanding and learning. Pupils analyse the text either responding verbally, in writing or completing explicit vocabulary teaching using words from the text. The whole class reading lesson approach helps to meet the needs of pupils who may have word reading difficulties but can successfully access verbal comprehension activities.
Core texts are read to and with the whole class and opportunities, outside English lessons, allow further discussion of the text. This also exposes the children to hear full texts that they themselves would not necessarily pick up to read, broadening their reading material.
Summative assessments will be entered into Target Tracker each term. Teachers will use their professional judgement, in conjunction with reading assessment criteria for each year group, to determine whether a child is working within age-related expectations, above or below. They will base their judgements for the most part on the quality of the written outcomes pupils given after structured teaching within the agreed reading skills. Reading assessments (e.g. past SATS papers, NFER assessments, etc.) are completed termly and provide another piece of evidence to support teachers’ assessment judgement. Where appropriate, pupils with SEND will have access to a scribe during reading assessments in order for them to successfully display their comprehension skills.
Provision for children who need additional support
To support our vulnerable readers, who despite varied efforts and approaches still do not make expected progress, we conduct more in depth additional assessments. The key ideas and building blocks for reading are important for everyone. We recognise that some children have a poor working memory and that they will not access texts unless they can read fluently, and essential prior knowledge of vocabulary is in the long-term memory. Support for these children might include: pre-teaching of vocabulary; use of additional adults; scaffolds; over-learnt vocabulary; and Rapid Read intervention (KS2).
Pupils with language difficulties, and who are on the Speech and Language Service caseload, receive additional weekly support to aid their expressive and receptive language skills as appropriate. Pupils with the highest levels of need in relation to their comprehension skills, have intervention delivered by an ELKAN trained teaching assistant.
Reading for Pleasure
‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)
‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)
We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy. We read to children every day. Teachers choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Roehampton Church School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
Every classroom has a book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books. In Nursery and Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
Children from Nursery and Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer signs the reading record each day and may choose to write comments to share with the adults in school. The reading record will be monitored by adults in school on a regular basis to ensure regular reading is carried out. As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments in their reading record and keep a list of the books/authors that they have read.
Children across the school have opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (library visits, author workshops, national events etc).