Reading & Phonics - LKS2

OUR READING CURRICULUM INTENT

We want all children to have the understanding, that reading is something for everyone not just the few: they will be taught to fluently decode as well as comprehend.  All children in our school will develop their self-concept as readers and develop a clear picture of their personal “reading identity”. We want all children to derive pleasure from reading, be it immersion in the escapism of fiction or acquiring new knowledge and critical thinking skills through non-fiction.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. ― Dr. Seuss,  

Reading

The essential aim of our reading curriculum is to instil a love of reading that will stay with the children throughout their lives. We know that children who are fluent, confident readers will be more able to access the whole curriculum and will achieve better outcomes in all areas of the curriculum. 

In school children will have regular opportunities to read for pleasure and to an audience.  They will be encouraged to read to celebrate and extend their learning.

Through a planned programme of teaching reading will progress from decoding, to fluency, to comprehension, through one to one reading, whole class reading and modelled/ shared reading.

Our goal is to teach the children the skills to progress from reading scheme books to being able to select their own books from a varied range of genres that suit their ability. 

A home-school reading partnership is fostered through the school, whereby children are encouraged to bring books home to share with their families.  As well as promoting reading, this gives the school and parents an opportunity to regularly communicate about children’s reading.

LKS2

• We have a daily reading session, developing reading stamina across a range of text types. Including fluency sessions, comprehension sessions, sharing a range of class texts and sustained individualized reading.
• Children are exposed to non-fiction books linked to our topics. This exposure to a range of texts will expand their reading repertoire and encourage a life-long love of reading. Many of our English units are linked to a range of multimodal texts.
• We continue to develop inference skills by using our reading journals to support learning both at home and at school.
• We run a reading buddy systems with KS1, sharing books on a weekly basis.
• We include a 'Word of the Day' within our daily spelling session. This introduces new vocabulary to the children, which we encourage them to include in their writing. 
• Throughout the year, we visit the local library, as well as regular visits to our in-school library. Here they can explore different texts and have the opportunity to borrow books. 
• Reading occurs in all curriculum areas.
• Daily spelling lesson includes work on phonics and letter patterns.
• Children requiring additional support with independent reading strategies have access to intervention programmes.

Reading in the classroom

• We use a range of high quality texts as a vehicle for our English lessons. All children have the opportunity to listen to stories both read and told to them.
• When delivering whole class reading text, we pre-teach vocabulary to ensure understanding.
• Fluency reading techniques are used by both the teacher and children. We discuss the plot, characters, etc. and the focus for the lesson will be a particular skill such as prediction, retrieval or inference.
• When answering comprehension questions children are taught reading skills such as skimming and scanning. A follow-up task is given so children can reflect on what they have read and provides an opportunity for the teacher to observe/assess the individual understanding of a piece.
• We use poetry journals to build up a repertoire of well-loved rhymes, songs and poems. This is an important part of early literacy development and a source of great joy.
• We encourage the children to read at home and expect them to read to parents/carers at least 4 times per week. Children have the opportunity to change their home/school reading book every day. Parents are encouraged to communicate via a reading diary.

BREADTH OF STUDY AND PROGRESSION IN READING

We carefully plan the different text types we are going to study in our English and Reading lessons, to ensure full coverage of the curriculum, alongside the children's interests and our topics.

OUR YEAR GROUP READING LISTS

Each age phase has drawn up a list of carefully selected texts, that they will be using across each curriculum cycle as a focus for their teaching and class readers.

These are not the only texts read: other books are also enjoyed throughout the year (for example when reading whole class stories for pleasure, in whole school events and competitions, Whole Class reading lesson extracts)

The books are chosen through taking in to account:

• Topic themes and English objective coverage
• Age range, ability, varied genres and interests of the classes
• Tackling the “Plagues of Reading”, which help children engage with high level texts, which present challenges to the reader

Please see below the lists for each age phase - (which are regularly reviewed by teaching teams). These do change at times, to reflect curriculum modifications.