Reading

Reading

We recognise that our children arrive at school with a range of language experiences. Through a rich and creative curriculum, we aim to provide our learners with the best opportunities to become fluent, confident and skilled communicators and readers.

Reading- Aims and Objectives

The teachers at Goddard Park hold high expectations of themselves and the children they teach. We see everyone in school as readers. We strive for excellence in Reading and by adopting a consistent and creative approach to our teaching, we aim for our learners to fulfil their potential and develop a genuine love for reading. It is our aim that, by the end of their primary education, where appropriate, all pupils will love reading, consider themselves readers; are able to read fluently and with confidence and in any subject.

Through our Reading curriculum we aim to:

• Develop a genuine love of reading, promoting positive attitudes
• Develop confidence, fluency and good understanding when reading in any subject
• Develop a habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• Equip our learners with a range of strategies which will support their development and ability to decode, recognise familiar words and spelling strategies and find contextual clues.
• Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and a knowledge of linguistic   

conventions for reading and writing

• Appreciate our rich and varied literacy heritage
• Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas drawing on evidence from texts they have read
• Provide equal opportunities for all pupils to achieve success in Reading

Approaches to Teaching and learning

Our teachers are skilled and demonstrate their own love of reading through high quality modelling and outstanding teaching of English. To maintain excellent standards (in teaching and learning) the teachers and Teaching Assistants are kept well informed and up-to date with current Curriculum requirements and teaching pedagogy. We follow a creative and stimulating Reading curriculum, taught five times a week for 1 hour – in mixed abilities for KS2 and in Read Write Inc groups in KS1. Read Write Inc phonics teaching strategies run through our reading curriculum from EYFS to year 6. We also use a variety of strategies and stimulus to encourage creativity in teaching and learning. These include: Pie Corbett, The literacy shed, Vocabulary and Comprehension Ninja, VIPERS, film and the Somerset Literacy Network. Included in these resources is our own varied stock of story books – with linking non-fiction texts (where appropriate); poetry and play scripts. These resources have been sorted by age suitability, with sets of each book for a whole class to enjoy.

At all times, our teachers strive to make Reading engaging and varied.  We enhance reading opportunities by providing stimulating starting points, real life experiences, out of school trips, visits to the local library, author and illustrator visits and workshops, book fairs, book swaps and  participating in national celebrations such as National story-telling week, World Book Day and National Non-Fiction Week.

We make links to the wider curriculum as much as possible in order to allow children to develop and value reading across different contexts and purposes. We model and share our own reading, reading habits and interests in order to support and motivate children with their learning.

Children have reading modelled to them every day by a teacher during Teacher Treasure time,  from our whole school reading spine – teacher treasure boxes. This time provides the children with valuable time to engage with challenging vocabulary; demonstrations of different linguistic and grammatical devices plus challenging ideas and concepts to stimulate discussion.

Children also have time throughout the week for independent, shared, group and (for some children) one to one reading time with an adult. Children are read to in their year groups every day and year groups learn poems ‘off-by-heart’ throughout the term to share in their year group assemblies and to build a repertoire of poetry ready for our whole school Poetry Slam in the Spring term. Children are exposed to a range of non-fiction texts (linking to themes from their reading groups fiction book where possible) every week.

Phonics

‘Children should be taught to read easily and fluently. ‘ At Goddard Park we use a fast-paced, rigorous and structured phonics programme (Read Write Inc). RWInc helps get every child reading fast and gives teachers the confidence and skills to deliver high-quality teaching every day. We wish to develop children who have a love of reading and are able to access their curriculum easily and effectively through reading with fluency, expression, accuracy and enjoyment.  Our aim is for every child to ‘Be a reader’.

Our pupils learn to read and write effectively and quickly using the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. 

Read Write Inc. Phonics

The programme is for:

• Pupils in Year R to Year 2 who are learning to read and write
• Any pupils in Years 2, 3 and 4 who need to catch up rapidly
• Struggling readers in Years 5 and 6 follow Read Write Inc. Fresh Start.

In Read Write Inc. Phonics pupils:

• Decode letter-sound correspondences quickly and effortlessly, using their phonic knowledge and skills
• Read common exception words on sight
• Understand what they read
• Read aloud with fluency and expression
• Write confidently, with a strong focus on vocabulary and grammar
• Spell quickly and easily by segmenting the sounds in words
• Acquire good handwriting.

In addition, we teach pupils to work effectively with a partner to explain and consolidate what they are learning. This provides the teacher with opportunities to assess learning and to pick up on difficulties, such as pupils’ poor articulation, or problems with blending or alphabetic code knowledge.

We group pupils homogeneously, according to their progress in reading rather than their writing. This is because it is known that pupils’ progress in writing will lag behind progress in reading, especially for those whose motor skills are less well developed.