Intent
Reading is at the heart of our curriculum. The use of carefully planned texts are the driver for our curriculum and this ensures that all children have access to high quality, relevant and engaging books that enables them to become confident, fluent and motivated readers.
How Reading links with our school values
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Children will learn to respect people from different backgrounds and periods through literature. |
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Children have the opportunity to read a wide variety of quality texts and develop a lifelong love of reading. |
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Children will be inspired by a range of authors, genres and topics which will motivate them to dream big and develop high aspirations. |
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Children are encouraged to read challenging texts which will develop their confidence, stamina and a positive attitude towards reading. |
Implementation
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- Reading is taught based on the National Curriculum for Years 1 to 6 and Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework and Development Matters. Our reading skills progression document and LTP of key texts ensures that the progression and challenge is appropriate.
Phonics
- A discrete phonics session is taught daily in Early Years and Year 1, following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds scheme.
- Some children have additional ‘catch up’ and ‘keep up’ sessions
Early Years & Year 1
- Children read phonetically decodable books 3 times a week with a teacher/teaching assistant. Session 1 focuses on fluency, session 2 focuses on prosody, session 3 focuses on comprehension.
- Children have an appropriate phonetically decodable book to practise their skills at home, an e-book to practise the book read in school, as well as a sharing book to promote reading for pleasure.
Year 2
- Children who are not secure in their phonics knowledge and skills have Little Wandle Letters and sounds teaching each week once identified through rapid catch up assessments.
- Children read in a small guided group with a teacher and read 3 times a week with an adult.
- Children take home a book to practise their skills at home. This is phonetically decodable and matched to the child’s individual phonics ability.
- Within a phonics session staff will be using formative assessment in a range of ways as part of on-going assessments. This could be observations of the children, whiteboard work, book work (in the appropriate year group), targeted questioning and seating arrangement within the session.
- Phonics summative assessments take place every 5 weeks and this information is used to plan the next unit of work and identify children who may need ‘catch up’ or ‘keep up’ groups. Children can also be identified within the 5-week period for ‘catch up’ and ‘keep up’ groups
- Children are reassessed after 3 weeks to identify whether catch up sessions have been successful.
Reading
- All children will listen to stories and texts being read aloud daily.
- Throughout school, carefully chosen texts are used to teach reading skills and comprehension and promote reading for pleasure. These texts are chosen for their literary merit: key themes, reflecting a diverse range of characters and voices, rich language, culturally rich content, varying genres and formats.
- Formative assessment is used to check understanding and inform teaching on a daily basis. Strategies for this include questioning, listening to discussions, live marking, reading pupil work and outcomes and listening to children read.
- Assessment of learning takes place termly with Years 3-5 completing NFER tests, Y6 completing Statutory Assessment practice
- All year groups including EY, Y1 and Y2 make teacher assessment judgements against agreed year group criteria. This information is used to help to measure pupil’s individual progress and inform plans for the next term and also identify gaps.
- A book club session takes place each week for children to discuss books and reading for pleasure.
- ‘Routes to Reading’ questions are completed each week in years 3-6.Children are taught their reading skills as a whole class in Key Stage 2.
- Children are encouraged to read at home 4 times per week and are rewarded with Team Points in KS1 and KS2.
- To encourage and foster the love of reading, children take home ‘Book Buddy’ home reading kits, 3 times a year.
- Every classroom has a dedicated book corner which has a range of age-appropriate texts and those which link to their year group curriculum.
- Each year group has a recommended reading list which is promoted in each classroom.
- Volunteers in school, including parent volunteers and students, read with targeted individual pupils.
- Links are established with the local library which includes librarian visits, library visits including Bookstart and Summer Reading Challenge
- Celebrations of reading such as World Book Day help to promote reading for pleasure.
- A book fair is held each year for children to browse and purchase books.
Impact
- Children will become independent and fluent readers, able to read with accuracy and understanding.
- Children will develop a lifelong enjoyment of reading.
- Children will have the skills so that they can access the next step of their education.
Recommended Reads
We have put together a list of recommended reads for each year group. It isn’t an exhaustive list and there may be other books that are your child or family’s favourites, but this is very much a list that we think contains some really good books that you can read with your child or that they can read alone.
Hempland Recommended Reading list EY
Hempland Recommended Reading list Y1
Hempland Recommended Reading list Y2
Hempland Recommended Reading list Y3
Hempland Recommended Reading list Y4
