We teach children comprehension skills so that they can interpret and understand a text. We hope to inspire children to love literature and to use the crucial life skill of reading to open the doors to the rest of the curriculum and become lifelong learners.
Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for reading. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the reading activities provided.
There will be one whole class shared reading lesson per week from Years 3-6 with bespoke grouped reading for every pupil at least once a week as well as individual reading.
In our shared and grouped reads, there will be a clear teaching focus with the opportunity to master key reading skills in each session. There are follow on reading tasks to enable pupils to evidence the skills they have mastered independently.
Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Read approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
At Highfield Hall Primary Scholl we know that reading is the key to unlocking the whole curriculum. Without the ability to read, children’s access to further learning is drastically limited.
We are passionate about promoting a love of reading. Our aim is that all children will learn to read with fluency, understanding and the confidence to access a variety of texts with reading as a source of pleasure and escapism.
Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and is promoted throughout all subjects. We encourage all children to gain an appreciation of books from a variety of genres. We believe that becoming a confident and fluent reader is the key to achieving success at primary school and beyond.
Reading Implementation
Reading is different across the age ranges and fostering a love of books and reading is at the heart of our EYFS curriculum. In Nursery we lay the foundations for early reading through the teaching of Phase 1 phonological awareness using the Monster Phonics Foundations programme. We plan a daily digest of high-quality books, songs and rhymes to share with the children.
As the children move to Reception, young readers at Highfield Hall start their Monster Phonics school programme journey. This is a government approved phonics scheme that teaches children early reading skills in a clear, concise, and effective way. Phonics and reading sessions are carefully planned to ensure fluidity between them. Monster Phonics ensures that children are not cognitively overloaded, by keeping the routine simplistic and the outcomes are visible in their thorough assessments.
As children progress to Year 3 our young readers start on the Pathways to Read programme. This is a collection of high-quality lesson plans that have been created by a team of literacy specialists from the Literacy Company. Within the programme, there are units of work finely planned to ensure children are learning all the key skills for reading including prediction, retrieval, inference etc. Children are taught through the Pathways to Read scheme from Year 3 to Year 6.
We recognise the importance of continuing to develop the children’s reading fluency as they move into KS2 and there are regular, planned opportunities to practise this skill. This may be through our weekly Pathways to Read sessions, discrete fluency lessons linked to other areas of the curriculum or through regular opportunities to read aloud to an adult or peer. Reading fluency is modelled at every opportunity by the teacher so that children develop a firm understanding of what fluent reading sounds like.
As well as the explicit teaching of reading we have many other strategies that are in place across school to encourage and promote a love of reading. Each class has a class library with a range of exciting books, carefully planned to ensure a mix of cultures, genres, authors and children’s interests.
Every day, each class dedicates time for children, teachers and TAs to read their own book for pleasure. At the end of the school the children hear their class book being read aloud.
Reading Impact
We are continually tracking the impact of our reading curriculum.
All children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are assessed using Monster Phonic tracking and reading placements. The data from these assessments are used to place children in their Monster Phonics reading groups and to plan and track interventions and keep up sessions effectively. Children’s reading fluency is assessed and tracked through KS2 using WCPM. Interventions are in place for children who need extra support to increase their reading fluency.
With regards to formal assessments, children complete the Phonics Screening Check in Year 1 (and again in Year 2 if required). Rising Star reading assessment papers are used in Autumn, Spring and Summer terms in Year 2 to Year 6. Year 6 complete reading SATS papers. We opt in for the Year 2 SATS reading papers.
Teaching and learning is monitored by regular drop-in and whole school pupil’s voice sessions through termly curriculum swap afternoons.
The long-term goal is that our children will leave primary school as confident and competent readers with a love and enthusiasm for reading, enabling them to achieve and excel in the future.