Intent

At Baston CE Primary School we intend to foster a love of reading for all, in order to enrich learning and wider life experience. We intend to do this through careful and well-planned lessons and activities which involve imaginative stories and thought-provoking texts. We believe that reading is a key skill that enables children to develop learning across the wider curriculum. It lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment. Through the teaching of reading, our aim is for children to become fluent and confident readers who can apply their knowledge and experience to a range of texts from EYFS through the final Key Stage 2 curriculum.

We recognise the importance of taking a consistent approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps at our earliest opportunity and to target children to support them in attaining the expected standard or higher. We intend to develop pupils’ reading across and within all subjects to support their acquisition of knowledge. Children will be taught to read fluently, understand extended prose (both fiction and non-fiction) and be encouraged to read for pleasure. We will do everything we can to promote wider reading both at home and in school.

 

Implementation

We use a synthetic phonics programme called Read, Write, Inc. (RWI) and we follow this scheme with fidelity. Read Write Inc is a phonics complete literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. This is supported by comprehensive scheme of reading books to support the RWI programme.

Once children leave the RWI scheme at the end of Key Stage One, reading progresses into the Oxford Reading Tree reading scheme. At Baston CE Primary School all classes follow a structured 5-day approach to reading activities. All sessions are interactive and teachers facilitate speaking and listening opportunities, with children working hard individually. In Key Stage One we may use the Word Aware programme to extend and develop vocabulary. 

 High quality texts and passages are chosen, appropriate to the expectations of the year group or ability of children, and teachers use these texts to model the application of the agreed reading skills (VIPERS). Children are taught to notice breakdown in reading - identifying words/phrases they don’t understand and strategies to fix breakdown in meaning. Children are taught to relate the text to themselves, previous reading experiences and the world around them.

The whole school has designed a ‘Literacy Spine’, which holds a range of texts. These books are pitched to age and are read ‘for joy’ as a whole class over the course of the year as a class reader, or to support Guided Reading sessions. This means that every child will have had access to at least 40 books on leaving our school.

Our Library Bus offers a range of fiction and non-fiction books. Our children may choose to read any of these books for pleasure, either independently or by an adult at school, or at home. For our children who find reading difficult, we have a range of comprehensive intervention programmes such as Beat Dyslexia, Truggs, Precision Reading, Sound Steps; and PiXL Therapies. 

 

Impact

Through clear intent and implementation of reading, it is our hope that it will be loved by all across the school. Teachers will have high expectations and quality evidence will be presented clearly in books and through discussion. Children will make good use of reading to build knowledge and skills across other subjects and all children in the school should be able to speak confidently about their reading ability, habits and preferences.

We formally monitor progress termly by administering the SSRT reading/comprehension test to all. In Key Stage Two we use a PiXL Reading test termly to monitor reading progress and identify areas for development. As we believe that reading is key to all learning, the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter the wide and varied magical worlds that reading opens up to them. As they develop their own interest in books, a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles is enhanced. 

Impact will be further monitored by Curriculum Teams, SLT and the governing body through termly, whole school pupil progress checks and subject scrutiny.