Our Whole School Approach to Reading
“We are here to bring learning to life for every member of our school community, just as water brings life to the world. We are here to prepare children for their journey through life as responsible respectful citizens of the future who are ambitious, courageous and kind. We are a school that is proud to be creative, caring, nurturing and challenging in equal measure. We aim to develop life-long learners who thrive in our care and bring life to the future of our world.”
And so, our vision for reading is to bring books to life for children, creating life-long readers who find enjoyment through reading. We aim to expose children to a wealth of literature, authors and text types to create readers who read for both pleasure and knowledge.
Read about how we teach reading at St. George’s in our Whole School Approach & Phonics and Early Reading Policy.
Our Local Academy Board Reading Link Governor Jess Harris:
My role is to fully understand what steps are being taken to encourage, utilise and support reading in school. Also the barriers to such steps and the next steps the school plan to take in the pursuit of happy, confident, life-long readers who read for pleasure and understanding. Reading is given a priority by the school and the curriculum is built on oracy and reading. As a former drama and English teacher, I find this focus of my role very rewarding and interesting.
Creating reading spaces in school.
We have a new library in school with many new book titles, authors and a diverse choice of texts. We also have a n mobile library, stocked and manned by out librarians so that children can enjoy a book outside at play and lunchtime.
The Teaching of Phonics and Early Reading
Read more about our approach to the teaching of Phonics and early reading in our policy: Phonics and Early Reading Policy.
Phonics is: making connections between the sounds of our spoken words and the letters that are used to write them down.
Phonics (reading and spelling)
At St. George’s, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression (appendix 1), which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At St. George’s, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.
At St. George’s we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.
Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who leads the early reading programme in our school, they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.
Foundations for phonics in Nursery
- We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:
- sharing high-quality stories and poems
- learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
- activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
- attention to high-quality language.
- We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.
Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1
- We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
- Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
- We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:
- Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
- Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read
- Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
- We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace.
- If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.
Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week
- We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week.
- Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
- prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
- In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
- In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.
- The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.
- Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.
- We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.
Additional reading support for vulnerable children
- Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.
Ensuring consistency and pace of progress
- Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
- Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
- Lesson templates, Prompt cards and How to videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.
Phonics information and resources for parents:
We usually teach four new sounds a week and have a review lesson on a Friday. You will get a list of the sounds that we are learning to have at home. These resources will help you with formation and pronunciation.
Use our glossary to understand what each word means:
We will work our way through the whole Little Wandle Programme until your child can read fluently.
The teaching of early reading is prioritised, every opportunity is used to promote reading. The classroom is rich in vocabulary, prompts for reading and a listening station. Specific teaching is timetabled across the day, however, throughout the day at every opportunity reading is modelled and prompted by adults.
The Teaching of Reading: Key Stage 2
Reading is prioritised.
In KS2 the day starts with 15 minutes AR reader time where children have the opportunity to read independently for pleasure and complete a book quiz. Children have a daily 30 – 40 minute whole class Talk4Reading. The end of each day finishes with children listening to a story read by the teacher, to model fluency, chosen from the Pie Corbett reading spine, a chosen author or text linked to the curriculum topic.
The reading materials that the children interact with have been carefully planned and sequenced using the Pie Corbett Reading Spine, Pie Corbett Page Turners and chosen authors so that over a 2-3 year cycle the children have exposure to a wealth of literature linked to the topic theme.
The areas of comprehension and vocabulary are taught through the reading domains, using Reading Vipers , with vocabulary as a strong thread through every lesson. Texts pre-read, with specific vocabulary taught through a variety of T4R approaches.
Reading Around the Curriculum
We provide the children with a wealth of reading experiences. Each class has a book area combined with a selection of topic based texts (fiction & non-fiction) for the classes current theme, on loan from the Shropshire Library Service to promote reading around the curriculum. Children have home access to Curriculum Visions for eBooks and Espresso for reading and listening to texts. Published materials, Whizz Pop Bang & First News are available for children to read in school or at home. The school library has a selection of fiction and non- fictions texts, with book banded books organised for easy selection.
An example of a theme plan with reading materials:
We ensure that books are accurately matched to children’s needs. In EYFS, KS1 and as necessary the children take home a book matched to the phonic phase they are learning and a second book to promote vocabulary and comprehension which can be read along with an adult. Children are asked to read both books prior to changing books and re-reading is prompted. Children can independently select their books from the classroom or library area. Family members who read with and to the child are asked to record the reading and note comments in the reading diary. This diary is used by staff in school when children are heard read 1:1 by an adult. The class teacher will also record a note of the book being read in class that week, the appropriate phonics along with reading prompts.
In KS2, children take home an Accelerated Reader (AR) book banded book linked to their specific zone of proximal development. The children can also take home a second book, magazine or newspaper of their choice, again to enjoy with or without an adult. This is to ensure we are not limiting pupil’s opportunity to read a variety of texts. Children change their book independently from a choice in the classroom or library, this includes curriculum topic based books from the Shropshire Library Service, printed materials such as First News and Whizz Pop Bang and online eBooks on curriculum visions. Children in KS2 who require extra support in their reading will read a catch up scheme book, which is an age appropriate, decodable, synthetic phonic book for older children with an accompanying follow up activity.
Children and family members are asked to record the reading and note comments in the reading diary. This diary is used by staff in school when children are heard read 1:1 by an adult. Once children have read, read with an adult or listened to an AR book banded book they complete an online quiz.
In EYFS and KS1 teacher assessment against the Early Learning Goals, National Curriculum Objectives and reading domains. Children in Year 1 & 2 are assessed in Termly PIRA assessments. In KS2 children are assessed against the National Curriculum Objectives and reading domains. Accelerated Reader assessment provides a reading age and zone of proximal development. Children in Year 1 – 6 take part in PIRA or SATs termly assessments. Specific targeted interventions are used to support children who are not on track to meet age expected levels of attainment or reach their own specific progress measures such as greater depth. These can be in the form of precision 1:1 reading intervention such as ‘Toe by Toe’, or through a catch up phonics reading scheme ‘Catch Up Readers’ including the series Moon Dogs and Talisman.
Resources for Parents:
Reading with your child guide for parents: A guide to questioning and recording comments linked to reading.
Words for life The National Literacy Trust – ideas, games and information linked to supporting reading and word play at home.
Welcome to Renaissance Place (renlearn.co.uk): Accelerated Reader where children in Year 2 – 6 can complete quizzes on the books they have read. (please contact school if you require another copy of your child’s login details)
Curriculum Visions, helping every student to succeed: An online resource full of non-fictions texts to read online. (please contact school if you require another copy of our school’s login details)
PhonicsPlay – Resources: Phonics Games and information for parents.
Oxford Owl for Home: help your child learn at home | Oxford Owl : Phonics and reading resources.
Local library services – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk): Where to find your local library