Reading
READING AT LYME COMMUNITY PRIMARY SCHOOL
Subject Leader Introduction
My name is Mrs Reid and I am the subject leader for reading at Lyme Community Primary School.
I believe that every child should be taught the skills to develop into enuthuastic and confident readers both at home and at school. Creating a life-long love of reading and books is at the heart what we do here at Lyme. Reading improves language and vocabulary, inspires imaginaton and gives everyone the opportunity to develop new interests.
Curriculum Intent
We know that developing a love of reading is one of the most effective ways to raise attainment as children who enjoy reading will achieve more highly right across the curriculum.
Throughout their time at Lyme Community Primary School children are provided with a variety of challenging, relevant and engaging activities to develop, extend and master their ability to read and comprehend texts they have read. In order for children to become confident in each reading skill children are encouraged at every opportunity to see reading as an interesting activity to undertake and to be motivated to see reading as a pleasurable experience.
Implementation
We have developed a reading curriculum, underpinned by the National Curriculum and informed by our school content and the needs and interests of our pupils. Our curriculum builds upon previous learning across the key stages, with the following skills at its core:
A good reader:
- Makes predictions and asks questions;
- Identifies important words, phrases and ideas;
- Visualises;
- Uses their background knowledge to connect with what they read;
- Identifies breakdowns and uses strategies;
- Thinks like a detective (finds the evidence) and uses inference.
Early Reading
Direct phonics teaching begins in nursery. The FFT Success for All program is used to provide a structured and systematic approach to teaching daily phonics, throughout early years and KS1. Links to our scheme's Parent Portal are provided and includes practise books and support and advice for parents.
Teaching and Learning
Key Stage 1
In Year 1 reading builds on the work from EYFS, so that children can sound and blend unfamiliar words quickly and accurately using their exsisting phonic knowledge. Pupils continue to learn new grapheme-phoneme correspondences and knowledge of common exception words (red words). This is supported by reading books consistent with their developing phonic knowledge. Children will take a copy of their phonic reading book home with them each week alongside one that they will choose from their class library. By the end of Year 1, the expectation is for the majority of children to pass the Y1 phonics test.
By the beginning of Year 2, pupils should be able to read all common graphemes. The majority of Y2 should have completed the FFT Success for All program by Autumn 2. During Year 2 a strong emphasis is placed on developing pupils' fluency. They will hear, read and discuss a wide range of stories, poems and non-fiction texts through whole class shared reading sessions. These carefully crafted units have been chosen as these are based on high-quality texts that empower teachers to teach all aspects of word reading and comprehension and they also provide curriculum knowledge for the foundation subjects. The STEPS TO READ scheme provides a clear teaching sequence to reading sessions that explicitly teach reading skills and strategies in a cumulative way through evidence based approaches.
Key Stage 2
In Y3 and Y4 pupils continue to apply and consolidate their phonic learning from KS1. They read books at an age-appropriate level independently, accurately and at speed which facilitates comprehension, allowing them to access a range of texts, which support learning across the curriculum. They further develop their skills in prediction and inference, using evidence from the text to support their responses. High-quality STEPS TO READ texts are used to provide a clear sequence to reading lessons.
In Y5 and Y6 pupils read a wider range of books from the STEPS TO READ scheme and adopt strategies to check that the text makes sense. Readers are aware of the conventions of different texts and genres and can talk about texts using increasingly sophisticated vocabulary. Pupils demonstrate increasing capacity in a range of reading skills such as: making comparisons; drawing inferences and identifying viewpoint and using valid evidence to support their responses.
Assessment and Curriculum Planning
At Lyme Community Primary School we believe children should be taught to read by applying phonics to develop fluency as well as improve and develop their comprehension skills. In Early Years, children are assessed against the EYFS age related criteria within the strand of Literacy, though aspects of the different reading skills can be seen in all areas of the creative curriculum where applicable.
In Year 1, pupils undertake the Phonics Screening Test in order to show whether their segmenting and blending skills meet the required threshold. Following this, children in Year 2 will sit two reading tests (SATs) to supplement the evidence for the teacher assessment. This is also compulsory in Year 6 where each child will sit a Reading Test in the May.
To help track and monitor children’s progress, children sit reading tests (NFER) from Year 2 onwards in each assessment week (one in each term- autumn, spring and summer). In Year 1 and when suitable in later years, children will also be individually benchmarked with a running record and asked appropriate questions linked to the text read. Children in Y2-6 are assessed 3 times a year using the Lexplore assessment tool to determine their reading attainment and identify intervention needs. This information is then used to inform curriculum planning outlining how additional support or challenge can be provided in order to meet the needs of our pupils. This information is also used by teachers when reporting to parents.
Developing a love of reading
Central to learning is creating a life-long love of reading and books and at Lyme we believe that every child should be given the tools to develop into an enthusiastic and confident reader both at home and at school. We provide a language rich environment ensuring that a plethora of vocabulary is taught across all subjects. Reading is at the heart of what we do at Lyme and we immerse pupils in the wonders of high-quality texts to create a love of reading. Alongside our core teaching of reading, pupils are exposed to a wide range of stories, rhymes, poems and non-fiction texts.
