Reading at Spetisbury

Curriculum Intent

At Spetisbury CE Primary School, we aim to provide all children with a high-quality education in English that will teach children to:

It is our intention that by the end of their primary education, all of our pupils are able to read fluently and with confidence, which will help them to further their education into Secondary school.

Curriculum Implementation

• Learning to read, begins on day one of EYFS. Phonics is taught through the All Aboard Phonics. Phonics is at the heart of the EYFS provision. 
• Our reading scheme begins with the reading books split into the phonics phases. The children take home a book matched with the phonics phase that they are working at.  All EYFS children have reading diaries, which record any reading done with an adult at home or in school. The children are regularly assessed using Phonics Tracker. Precision teaching is used to ensure that all children make the right levels of progress.
• Once in Year 1, children continue to receive a daily phonics session and have small group guided reading sessions. The small group Guided Reading sessions help the children to develop their reading skills and ability to answer simple reading comprehension questions. Reading continues to be logged in reading journals and the expectation is that children will read aloud to an adult for at least 10 minutes three times a week. By the end of phase 6 phonics, the children are fluent readers and are ready to access whole class guided reading sessions of full-length books.
• From Year 2 onwards, whole class guided reading takes place 5 times a week for 25 - 30 minutes. During these sessions, the children will develop their reading skills and ability to answer a whole range of comprehension questions. We use the VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explain, Retrieve, Sequence/Summarise) stems to focus the teaching on a specific comprehension skill. The children record their comprehension answers in a red exercise book. Whole Class Guided reading texts have been carefully chosen to engage, inspire and stretch the children’s reading. In addition to their daily whole-class guided reading, each class has a class novel, which is read to them by a teacher or teaching assistant, modelling good reading. Children are encouraged to borrow books from our well-stocked library or class bookshelf. Reading continues to be logged in reading diaries and in a weekly grid.

Curriculum Impact

By the end of each year group, children will have acquired the skills needed to move on to the next stage of their education. The vast majority of children will achieve well in the Year 1 phonics screening check and be ready to access appropriate books independently. Phonics Tracker is used to track the children’s progress and smaller phonics groups are formed as a result of the data. Support is put into place to ensure that children not working at ARE are supported to thrive. This support may be through a teacher or teaching assistant led interventions. At the end of each term, the children complete a reading test. It is expected that 80% of the children will be working at ARE and 20% at GDS in all year groups.

It is expected that children will leave Spetisbury CE Primary school with a good level of reading to enable them to access the Secondary curriculum. During the years, they will have studied numerous fiction and non-fiction books and will have developed a real love of reading to take with them.

Decodable Books

As soon as a child has begun to learn the phonemes, they will be able to identify them in words. At this stage they should move on to working out whole words through sounding out blending. Our decodable books are designed to match a child’s development so there are appropriate texts for each stage of their phonics learning.

The National Curriculum for English (2014) aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Read easily, fluently and with good comprehension.
• Develop the habit of reading for both pleasure and information.
• Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.

Reading underpins children’s access to the curriculum and it clearly impacts on their achievement. To be able to read, children need to be taught an efficient strategy to routinely decode words, until that process becomes automatic and they become fluent readers. Children need to be given the opportunity to regularly apply the phonics they have learned by reading fully decodable books.

All Aboard Phonics decodable books match the progression of the All Aboard Phonics lesson plans. When children are learning to read it is imperative that they are using fully decodable books that are matched to their phonics knowledge. This will establish the use of phonics rather than whole word sight reading or guessing. 

Reading for Pleasure

In every class, there are a selection of curated books for the children to choose from. These books have been selected to engage and enthuse all children within the class. These books are high quality and regularly changed to ensure that the children are continuously exposed to books which they will enjoy.

It is a highlight of this scheme that classes are able to discuss and share these books with visitors and also their peers. This enthusiam for the books is infectious and will encourage even the most reluctant reader to pick up a book.

The books are selected from recommedations from the Book Trust, Carnegie book award nominees and Kate Greenaway Medal nominees.

Reading at Home                                             

Enjoying a book with your child is a fantastic way to share adventures and experiences together, and it’s the best way to get them reading for life. Here are some tips for raising a reader;

1. Make books part of your family life – Always have books around so that you and your children are ready to read whenever there’s a chance.
2. Join your local library – Get your child a library card, you'll find tons and tons of fantastic books. Allow them to pick their own books, encouraging their own interests.
3. Match their interests – Help them find the right book - it doesn’t matter if it’s fiction, poetry, comic books or non-fiction.
4. All reading is good – Don’t discount non-fiction, comics, graphic novels, magazines and leaflets. Reading is reading and it is all good.
5. Get comfortable– Snuggle up somewhere warm and cosy with your child, either in bed, on a beanbag or on the sofa, or make sure they have somewhere comfy when reading alone.
6. Ask questions – To keep them interested in the story, ask your child questions as you read such as, ‘What do you think will happen next?’ or ‘Where did we get to last night? Can you remember what had happened already?’
7. Read whenever you get the chance – Bring along a book or magazine for any time your child has to wait, such as at a doctor’s surgery.
8. Read again and again – Encourage your child to re-read favourite books and poems. Re-reading helps to build up fluency and confidence.
9. Bedtime stories – Regularly read with your child or children at bedtime. It’s a great way to end the day and to spend valuable time with your child. This special time doesn't have to stop once your child can read independently! 
10. Rhyme and repetition – Books and poems which include rhyme and repetition are great for encouraging your child or children to join in and remember the words. Enjoying a poem is a brilliant way to foster a love of language and there are lots of hilarious and imaginative books of poetry for children.