Intent

The overarching aim for English is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. Our intent of the reading curriculum is to ensure that all pupils read easily, fluently and with good understanding; develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information; acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language; and appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.

Implementation

The reading environment in the classroom should aim to promote reading for pleasure, as well as reading for information and developing research skills. Each classroom has a book area. We try to provide a variety of texts from which the child can select books to read and share. Materials available in the school include: picture books, wordless texts, fiction books, non-fiction books, books made by children, catalogues, magazines, comics, newspapers, poetry books, joke books, religious books, dictionaries, word books, atlases, encyclopaedias, Oxford Reading Tree Scheme books, multi-cultural books, classics, plays, folk/fairy stories, traditional stories and diaries, books promoting positive role models. The children have opportunities to develop their reading within the classroom. As well as reading to their class teachers, they should have the opportunity to read to or with: other school staff, parent helpers, other children in their class and with Reading Buddies, and by themselves.  Class teachers should also read to the children individually, in groups or as a class. Children are encouraged to read for different purposes and become aware of different audiences.

The Power of Reading is a scheme produced by the CLPE (Centre for Language in Primary Education).

Books are chosen for specific year groups based on their quality. The scheme is written to promote the love of reading, exploring plot structure, language and authorial intent as well as many opportunities for speaking and listening.

Reading Explorers – used in guided reading. Children share the text and then respond to questions about the text. From year 3 they should be recording their responses on white boards/paper, to prepare for assessments

PRIM-ED digital resource – used for teaching the skills of reading to the whole class. Skills are revisited every year and progression is in the level of the text. This allows practice of answering different question types as well. Other resources are used to supplement comprehension (twinkl)

Impact

Children enjoy reading. They read books aloud, accurately, that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words

They reread these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading read and discuss a book that is set in familiar or different settings, exploring a range of themes. They can appreciate how a character changes through the course of a story. They progressively build a varied and rich vocabulary and an increasing range of sentence structures.