Reading at Tutshill: Our Vision
At Tutshill, we pride ourselves on being a school committed to developing competent readers with a love for reading; this runs right through our school community, from the children, to Caregivers and all members of our school staff team. We recognise how important it is to develop a passion for reading in our children, to enable them to be successful learners in all areas of the curriculum and in life beyond our school.
Each year we continue to build on and develop our journey towards making our children lifelong lovers of reading. We continue to work hard to develop an ethos of reading for pleasure and to embed our vision of making every member of our school community a lover of reading. Some of the ways we demonstrate our strategic approach include our established link with Reading Teachers=Reading Pupils; completion of a research project into transforming reading culture and implementing principles from The Fluency Project pilot scheme.
Intent
At Tutshill C. of E. Primary School we aim to provide a stimulating, challenging Reading Curriculum for all our children, underpinned by the objectives set out in the National Curriculum of 2014. Our ultimate intention is to rise to the rigour and challenge of the National Curriculum 2014. We follow a fast-paced programme of key objectives with the intention of embedding, revisiting, developing and applying key reading skills where needed throughout the academic year.
We pride ourselves on being a school committed to developing competent readers with a love of reading; indeed, this runs through our school community, from our learners, to our caregivers and all members of our school staff team. We recognise this passion for reading to be key to enabling our children to be successful learners in all areas of the curriculum and in life beyond our school.
The school intent is to develop literate pupils who:
- Read for pleasure
- Read to acquire knowledge
- Read a wide range of quality texts
- Make close links between reading and writing
- Read fluently with confidence
- Read to develop vocabulary
- Select own choice of texts
- Read in all subjects
We do this by:
- Ensuring the youngest children quickly develop the early reading skills they need with phonics at the centre of all provision
- Enabling children to activate, build and demonstrate increasingly progressive phonetic skills when blending and segmenting
- Developing children's confidence, fluency and independence as a reader when reading for different purposes
- Enabling children to become enthusiastic and reflective readers by introducing them to a range of genres and authors
- Promoting wider reading across the curriculum.
- Enabling children to read fluently by the end of Y2.
- Fostering, developing and modelling the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and for information
- Developing a wide vocabulary and understanding of grammar and ability to read with attention to punctuation
- Ensuring that all children are quickly identified and provided with timely support needed to 'keep up' and 'catch up' quickly should they be identified as at risk of falling behind
Use of the Tutshill learning approach for metacognition and the five step ABCDE coaching model underpins our intent for reading, with the aim of:
- Supporting learners to become reflective readers drawing on reading strategies, visual cues and talking out loud to make sense of text types and genres.
- Ensuring they are able to read for pleasure and develop a love of reading.
- Preparing children for life as successful citizens in Modern Britain through the acquisition of a fundamentally good standard of reading, with an appreciation of the importance of reading within society and the wider world.
- Using our core Christian Values and key learning behaviours to overcome challenges, demonstrate resilience, work effectively and responsibly.
The simple view of reading
Research has shown (The Rose Review and Reading by six), that children learn best when schools follow this model of teaching reading.
Therefore, this is the structure that we follow in our school.
1. Word reading - Children need to be taught the ‘route to decode words’ by following a structured phonics programme. We follow the DfE validated Rocket Phonics scheme as our chosen SSP. This has been fully validated by the DfE.
2. Comprehension (both listening and reading) - When children become proficient at phonically decoding and blending, they need to read appropriately challenging books, with a focus on developing comprehension skills.
Whilst most children start Key Stage 2 with a good phonic knowledge, those children falling behind in their reading or who have not passed the phonic screening test at Year 2, still need to follow a systematic phonics programme to ensure rapid progress.
We do this by:
- Ensuring timely intervention to support those falling behind in their reading.
- Delivering the 'Rocket Phonics' as our validated Systematic Phonics Programme (SSP)
Implementation
To ensure a holistic approach to the teaching of reading, we implement the following:
• All children from EYFS to Year 6 choose a library book to take home and this reading book is changed each week.
• Each classroom has a selection of books in their classroom which are directly linked with the class topic. This offers opportunities for the children to apply their reading skills across the curriculum.
• Each classroom has a reading area that is filled with books suitable for their reading age. This is a comfortable place for children to read throughout the day. Each class has a collection of recommended reads. A recommended reading list is available for all classes, via e-schools to all pupils and families.
• Children are encouraged to read at home every day and supporting reading at home is given high priority. Each child has a reading record book which logs books they have read and comments about their reading. Parents and teaching staff write in this book.
All classes have a reading folder on Seesaw where parents and pupils can upload and log books and responses or discussions about books. The first reading will be to make predictions and decode unfamiliar words and vocabulary in the text. The second reading will build reading fluency. The third reading will be to read for meaning and with comprehension. Opportunities are given to develop retrieval and inference skills. Parents are encouraged to make comments in their child’s reading record.
Teaching approaches
Phonics
Children are first taught to read in Reception using the systematic approach using Rocket Phonics, which is also supplemented and enhanced by the use of actions and memorable phrases. This supports children by promoting a kinesthetic and multi-sensory learning approach.
They first learn to say the sounds using correct articulation and then learn the grapheme to phoneme correspondences for the 44 phonemes. Children learn to blend sounds, which enables them to read words, captions and sentences. When children can read sentences, they are taught how to read with attention to punctuation and to use expression. The link between blending and segmenting as reversible processes is clear from the beginning.
In Year 1, children learn more about alternative ways in which each phoneme can be represented and they also learn about the different pronunciations made by different letters or groups of letters, such as 'a' in 'ant' and 'was'. The alternative graphemes and pronunciations of sounds are linked to memorable phrases using resources including pictures and phrases. This supports visual and auditory learners. At the end of Year 1, children will be tested on their phonics knowledge, using a national Phonic Screening Test (PSC), featuring 20 real words and 20 pseudo-words (nonsense words).
From Year 2 onwards, children consolidate their phonics knowledge, developing fluency, expression and reading for meaning.
Lessons are structured in a Review, Teach, Practise and Apply format. In EYFS and KS1 phonics is discretely taught in daily sessions.
Shared Reading
Teachers use shared reading to model how to read fluently with expression and prosody, how to decipher meaning from texts and how to express a personal response to text. Shared reading takes place across the curriculum, but most frequently in English lessons. Texts are chosen carefully to provide challenge and interest for the children at a higher level than the children’s independent reading ability.
Guided Reading
Guided Reading lessons take place daily from Year One to Year Six within mixed-ability classes. Each class is organised to ensure that each child has the opportunity to complete the following tasks:
• Pre-reading task: Children read the text in preparation for the Guided Reading session the next day.
• Guided Reading: Teachers may listen to children read independently to assess their decoding ability, fluency and expression.
• Reading for Pleasure (RfP): Children have the opportunity to read for pleasure. This is timetabled into the school day. They have access to high quality texts from book corners.
• Teachers prioritise reading aloud to their classes daily.
The use of V.I.P.E.R.S is used from Years Two to Five.
V=Vocabulary I= Inference P= Predictions E= Explain R= Retrieve S= Sequence (KS1) S= Summarise (KS2)
This, skills- based approach to reading supports the children, teachers and TA’s when guiding and asking questions during group and individual reads. Classrooms in Years Two and Three display visuals for children to refer to.
In addition to the compulsory weekly tasks outlined above, children may also: read for pleasure; complete further English tasks, such as grammar, punctuation and spelling exercises; carry out research tasks linked to the class theme; complete English games.
Guided reading texts are carefully selected by the teacher to provide a suitable level of challenge to ensure children are reading at instructional level. A wide range of texts are available for guided reading, including fiction and non-fiction texts by a large number of different authors.
Library
We have an inspiring school library geared towards delivering a wide breadth of curriculum content to promote reading for pleasure across the curriculum, including reading role models and a variety of authors. Each class visits the library on a regular basis to change their book. Teachers regularly give input to the class about how to use the library effectively and also offer guidance on book choices and make recommendations.
Reading is not only celebrated in classrooms, but also around school. You will find displays which celebrate authors and children’s favourite books. In addition, throughout the school year the importance of reading is enhanced through events such as World Book Day, together with author and poet visits.
Parents support readers in school.
Class Books
Stories are read to the children on a daily basis throughout the school. In Key Stage Two classes this takes the form of a class novel.
Impact
Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One in Year Two. From this benchmark, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school.
All children are expected to succeed and make progress from their starting points from their last point of statutory assessment or from their starting point in EYFS.
Attainment in reading, age related expectations (ARE) is measured using the statutory assessments at the end of Key Stage One (to be reviewed from May 2023) and Key Stage Two. These results are measured against the reading attainment of children nationally.
All year groups are also assessed using ‘Insight’ (Pupil Tracking System) in the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms.
Formative assessments take place for Years 2-6.
Individual Phonic Phase Trackers are updated in the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms in EYFS and KS1 with individual children in KS2 being included in this assessment cycle also.
SEN and Pupil Premium children are also assessed using a miscue analysis system to closely monitor progress and attainment.
Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Check (PSC) outcome-test based assessment-at the end of Year 1.
However, we believe that reading is the key to all learning. The impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments. We give all children the opportunity and skills to enter the magical and imaginative worlds that books open up to them. We promote reading for pleasure to enable the children to become life-long readers.
Deep dive showing evidence of reading across the school.
Children will have and demonstrate a love of Reading and make at least good progress in Reading.
Children will use their reading skills as a key tool in helping them to learn across the curriculum.
Regular monitoring of subject
Impact is be reviewed each half term