Reading

Impact

At Altofts Junior School, we believe that reading is an essential life skill which is reflected in the fact that Literacy is one of our whole school curriculum drivers. .

At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a lifelong love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought provoking texts. Our text-driven English curriculum and our dedicated time given to reading for pleasure (DEAL) immerse the children in quality texts that reflect our rich and varied literary heritage. 

Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment. Our curriculum aims to develop children’s confidence, fluency and independence when reding for different purposes. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps and to target the highest possible number of children attaining the expected standard or higher.

Implementation

We have daily Guided Reading sessions, which focus on one quality text per week. The texts are increasingly challenging throughout each year group. During the course of the academic year, we ensure that there is a balance between fiction, non-fiction, classic texts, poetry and Shakespeare; the texts are mapped out half termly using a colour coded system to ensure this balance.

• In Guided Reading sessions, we begin the week with an oracy  lesson, which ensures children have the opportunity to discuss the text as a whole and begin to create links within the text content to support their comprehension. We then focus the learning on The Reading VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Predict, Explain, Retrieval, Summarise) , which are taught consistently across school (Vocabulary, Retrieval, Inference and then one other question type).
• We assess reading as part of our assessment calendar and complete QLAs for each year group in order to identify the reading domains in which further teaching is required. These are then used to inform planning.
• We focus on reading for pleasure through a timetabled daily reading session called DEAL (Drop Everything and Listen). This is around 10-15 minutes a day whereby the children listen to and discuss a quality text read by the class teacher.  This ensures that children have prosody modelled to them.
• Our writing curriculum is heavily text driven. A quality text is used, which also may link to other curriculum areas such as Science or History, as the basis for the writing the children produce.
• We ensure that we listen to children read on a regular basis. Upon entry in Year 3, we complete assessments to identify children who need support with phonics.  We use targeted interventions using Read, Write, Inc to address gaps in phonological knowledge.
• We aim to promote reading through numerous displays around school, some of which have inviting books to support them for children to access. We also promote reading through our school community especially our Reading Ambassadors.  
• We encourage children to read at home and for parents, other family members and carers to listen and discuss books with them.
• We involve parents in our reading journey by encouraging them to read with their children at home and sending home regular information about what sounds the children who attend phonics sessions are learning. We also asking for support in reading events such as a sponsored read to raise funds to enable us to purchase quality books for the children.

Impact

Children at Altofts Junior School leave at the end of Year Six having made good progress from their starting points at the beginning of Year Three. Children read with increased confidence, fluency and understanding as well as being able to comprehend a diverse range of texts. They leave us with a developing interest in books and a growing love of literature across a range of genres and cultures. 

We do termly PIXL reading assessments that allow teachers to track the children’s progress and then use QLA to look at gaps. From this data we then take the bottom 20% of readers and ensure they are reading 3 times a week to an adult.

 Approach to Guided Reading

DEAL Texts

Phonics

At Altofts Junior School, we use the Read Write Inc. (RWI) programme to support children who are still in the early stages of reading and therefore need a flying start, and new approach, with their reading and writing as they enter Key Stage 2.

 http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjlPILhk7bQ

RWI is a rigorous and structured programme which integrates phonics, comprehension, writing, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and handwriting. We follow this programme with absolute fidelity to ensure that our children get out of the reading gateway as quickly as possible; it has helped us to create a consistent approach across our school as we all work together to ensure our children are confident readers and writers.

Our expectation is that all pupils should be ready for daily whole-class reading sessions on entry to Altofts Junior School. However, those children whose decoding skills are not yet secure, access daily RWI sessions. Children in Years 3 and 4 work within the RWI scheme. Throughout the programme, the children rapidly learn sounds and letters/groups of letters in ‘Speed Sound’ lessons. This knowledge is taught and consolidated every day. High frequency words, that are not phonetically regular, are taught as ‘tricky’ words and practiced frequently.

Children read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and ‘tricky’ words so that they experience plenty of success. Repeated readings of these texts support their increasingly fluent decoding. During sessions, teachers read aloud and discuss books with similar themes so children build up background knowledge ready for the next text. Children are assessed and regrouped every six weeks according to their phonic knowledge. Ongoing assessment means that groups are constantly adjusted to ensure the best progress for each child.

For struggling readers in Year 5 and Year 6 we access the Fresh Start programme through RWI. Pupils are taught at their challenge point, so they can learn to read accurately and fluently. Every day, pupils learn new letter-sounds and review previous sounds and words. They apply what they’ve been taught by reading words containing the sounds they know in lively, age-appropriate stories and non-fiction texts closely matched to their phonic knowledge. 

Our mission is to ensure that every child ‘gets out of the reading gate’ as soon as possible as reading unlocks a child’s learning across our broad and ambitious curriculum.

Parent Information to support your child

Please visit Ruth Miskin’s website for parents to find out more about our wonderful programme – https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parents/ and take a look at these useful resources and documents, for further information, too:

• RWI Teaching Sequence
• RWI Handwriting Phrases
• RWI Phonics Structure Chart
• Parent/Carers FAQs
• List of RWI Books

• Visit – https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/ – for further advice and guidance videos.
• Sound Pronunciation Guide – https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/find-a-book/read-write-inc-phonics–1/phonics-pure-sounds-video

Top tips for reading stories to your child

At Altofts Junior school, we aim to ensure that all our children become fluent, confident and engaged readers starting from the first day they arrive in school. Your role as parents and carers is of paramount importance in this process and reading to your child regularly will develop their love of books and support them to understand the conventions of effective reading. 

1. Make reading to your child feel like a treat. Introduce each new book with excitement.
2. Show curiosity in what you’re going to read: ‘Oh no! I think Arthur is going to get even angrier now.’
3. Read the whole story the first time through without stopping too much. If you think your child might not understand something, model an explanation: Oh I think what’s happening here is that…
4. Chat about the story: I wonder why he did that? …Oh no, I hope she’s not going to… I wouldn’t have done that, would you?
5. Avoid asking questions to test what your child remembers.
6. Link stories to your own experiences (e.g. This reminds me of…)
7. Read with enthusiasm. Don’t be embarrassed to try out different voices. Your child will love it.
8. Read with enjoyment. If you’re not enjoying it, your child won’t.