Reading
At Westerton Primary Academy, we understand the strong correlation between reading abilities from a young age and the future life chances of our learners. We therefore prioritise Reading in our curriculum to ensure every pupil learns to read regardless of their background, needs or abilities. We recognise that the components required to develop children into skilled, inquisitive readers, include systematic phonics, reading fluency and language comprehension.
Timetables prioritise Reading and significant time is dedicated each day to teaching ‘reading skills.’ In Early Years and Key Stage 1, children read every day during Bug Club Phonics sessions. In Key Stages 1 and 2, the trust’s Accelerated Reader approach combined with Whole-Class Reading ensure that all children have access to appropriately challenging, language-rich texts that develop the comprehension skills children need to access the wider curriculum and beyond.
Reading Strategy
In our school you will see children who love books and the knowledge and enjoyment which can be gained from them. From daily story sessions and through the use of high-quality texts across the curriculum, we encourage and develop pupils of all abilities and equip them to become fluent, confident and expressive readers with an essential key life skill. In this way we aim to encourage children to have a love of books and to read for pleasure.
Our approach to reading focuses on the following key areas:
-delivery of systematic synthetic phonics from Nursery with Bug Club phonics
-intervention (where needed) to ensure that our children stay on track and can catch up if necessary
-detailed curriculum mapping which ensures that a child’s learning journey through school covers the national curriculum for reading whilst also immersing them in a wide range of high quality texts
-exposure to a range of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, comics and play-scripts across the curriculum, with an opportunity to listen to, read, perform and appreciate these high-quality texts whilst developing a love of reading themselves
-through our whole-class reading lessons, the children will develop their understanding of authorial intent, diversity and cultural capital, bias and generalistation
-regular assessment points through the year to track individual progress- Accelerated Reader, STAR reader, NFER, end of key stage assessments
-daily opportunities to read and listen to stories and a chance to discuss the texts that they have read
-our nursery rhyme and poetry curriculum ensure every class has as focus rhyme or poem for each week of the academic year
-support is given a thome through the use of our Bug Club virtual resources and Lexia and our reading intervention
Reading skills will be taught through phonics, independent reading, whole class reading, discussion in literacy sessions and 1:1 reading with adults in school.
Daily phonics lessons N-Y2. Whole class reading- three sessions per week Y1-Y6. Accelerated reading sessions at least 2 times per week Y1-Y6. Daily story sessions take place in Nursery-Y2. 1:1 reading and group reading sessions take place daily in Rec-Y2.
Whole Class Reading:
Our whole class reading sessions are taught in Nursery to Y6. The skills of reading are developed through direct teaching, using high-quality children’s literature. The texts have been chosen to offer challenge whilst also encouraging the children to develop the skills of inference, deduction and prediction. Through the year, the children are introduced to a range of texts chosen specifically to introduce the children to a wider range of vocabulary and particular themes. The whole class reading session includes opportunity for the children to see reading modelled by the teacher and offers the opportunity to follow the text and read aloud with fluency and expression. The children keep reading journals, logging and detailing their deep exploration of a chosen text. The teaching session and any follow-up activities after the main teaching may include the following key skills:
-choral reading of a section of the text, Echo reading of a section of the text
-word studies; focus on synonyms, definitions and use of the word within the context of a sentence
-ERIC tasks which involve Explaining, Retrieving, Interpreting and Choice ( language choices and authorial intent)
-character studies
-author studies
-linking books written by the same author or comparing themes in one book with another written by a different author
-different representations of question types
Whole class reading offers our children the opportunity to experience new worlds through stories, develop a broader and deeper understanding of the wonder of vocabulary in our English language, explore themes and characters in greater depth, share thoughts, ideas and predictions and most importantly ENJOY this shared reading and discussion with their peers.
Individual reading and fluency:
At Westerton, the children have regular opportunities for individual reading practice. In these sessions the children are encouraged to read for pleasure (having access to the books in the class reading area which can also be taken home). They are also able to read and complete Accelerated Reader quizzes on classroom devices. These opportunities develop their individual decoding, sight word recognition and reading fluency in a relaxed classroom environment. Adults will listen to children read phonetically decodable books at an appropriate level to the individual child. Pupils who do not pass the phonics screening check at the end of year one will continue to receive phonics intervention work to support them with their phonics strategies.
Phonics:
We aim to give our pupils a firm foundation in phonics with fidelity to a whole school programme that matches the national curriculum and early learning goals. At Westerton, we follow ‘Bug Club’ phonics which is a systematic synthetic phonics scheme that enables teachers and schools to teach phonics in a fast and engaging way so that all children become confident readers by the age of six. Bug Club is carefully structured and sequenced in phases starting with Phase 1 in nursery, where the children are taught listening skills through environmental walks and oral segmenting and blending. These skills are built upon as the children move into reception and they continue to work through the phases up to phase 6 in year 2. In Reception and Year One, our children have two phonics sessions per day. Session 1 is to recap taught sounds and introduce the new sound for that day. Session 2 is to apply their knowledge of the new sound and read a phonically decodable text containing that sound. Discrete daily phonics sessions incorporating the Bug Club interactive teaching resources ensure the pacey delivery of sessions in an engaging way. Accompanying 100% decodable reading books are matched to the child’s phonics ability level and taken home to read and re-read. Alongside the physical books, children are allocated ‘virtual’ books to read at home with their family. Phonics trackers and assessments ensure that any gaps in understanding can be addressed and interventions put in place.
Click on the image below to access the Bug Club website. Below is a letter introducing how we use Bug Club, a guide to the platform and an introductory video from Mrs Dawson.
Below are Westerton's "100 Books to read in..." lists. Why not use the list below for a birthday gift or weekend treat?
At least one copy of each book is available in our school library.
