Reading in the Village Schools Partnership
We believe that speaking, listening, reading and writing are fundamental life skills which enable children to communicate effectively in all areas and equip them for the challenges they will face in the wider world. We recognise that, whatever the future holds for our children, effective communication will be key to their success and that being a proficient reader is central to this.
Curriculum Intent
We endeavour to create a love for literature, so that children leave the school with the reading skills to not only comprehend texts well but take pleasure in reading as well. We are determined that:
- every child will learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities
- all children, including the weakest readers, make good progress to meet or exceed age-related expectations
- children are able to develop vocabulary, language comprehension and a love of reading through stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction texts
- children are familiar with, and enjoy listening to, a wide range of stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction texts
- our phonics programme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds, matches the expectations of the National Curriculum and the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum
- we have clear expectations of our children's phonics progress
- teachers will give children opportunities to practise reading and re-reading books that match the grapheme/phoneme correspondence they know (both in school and at home)
- teachers have a wide subject knowledge of books and authors in order to expose older children to a wide variety of genres and styles
- all children will have access to the school library and to the village's mobile library van, where this is available
Implementation of the Curriculum
Teachers:
- plan from the National Curriculum/ EYFS foundation stage - as presented in Partnership’s planning documentation
- in EYFS/KS1 will ensure that reading, including the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics is taught from Preschool onwards
- will quickly identify any children falling behind and targeted, specific intervention is given immediately through the use of the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up programme
- in EYFS/KS1 use phonically decodable reading books matched to phonic stage, in line with the Little Wandle Phonics programme
- in EYFS/KS1 will teach songs, rhymes and whole favourite stories and discuss to build up book comprehension and enjoyment
- in KS2 will continue to ensure the sequence of reading books shows cumulative progression matched to reading ability
- ensure all children are encouraged to read daily at home and monitor this through a reading record book, which are checked weekly and acknowledged with a teacher stamp or comment
- teach comprehension daily through whole class reading as a central part of English lessons
- use discrete reading comprehension sessions (primarily in KS2) as an opportunity for wider reading around the curriculum
- select high quality literature with language rich vocabulary to use as core teaching texts
- read to children daily from a range of high quality literature, across a broad range of genres and authors
- will timetable regular time in the school library
- encourage children to collect new vocabulary from their reading
- encourage children to participate in public library reading challenges and book choosing where mobile library facilities allow
- organise regular books fairs
Our implementation document for Reading can be found here
Impact of the Reading Curriculum
The impact of our curriculum is measured in the following ways:
- Children receive regular verbal feedback through 1:1 reading with an adult, Little Wandle group reading sessions and whole class reading sessions.
- Teacher’s carry out continuous formative assessment of reading through skilled listening and questioning.
- Children in KS1 are assessed according to the Little Wandle programme.
- On completing the Year 1 Little Wandle programme children carry out the Phonics Screening Test, normally in Year 1 according to government guidelines.
- All children are assessed in Year 2 through the Little Wandle assessment tracker tool to determine whether they need to continue with the programme.
- Children in KS1 and KS2 carry out summative reading assessments on a termly basis.
- Summative assessment results are recorded on the school's internal assessment system, allowing leaders to assess trends and progress and to identify where children are not making expected progress from their starting points.
Links with other areas
Our strategy for the teaching of Writing is intrinsically linked to other areas of the English curriculum:
