READING POLICY

Related Documents: English Policy

Phonics and Spelling Policy

May 2021

Barnston Primary School

READING POLICY

Rationale

Barnston Primary School has a consistent and structured whole school approach to reading, which nurtures children who can independently employ a range of reading skills in order to: use a variety of information from a range of texts and to further understanding, whilst enjoying a passion for reading and developing a life-long love of books.

Aims

The school aims to:

Encourage an enthusiasm for reading and an enjoyment of books, which nurtures both children and adults who read for both pleasure and for information.

Provide children with an opportunity to read a variety of different material.

Provide all pupils with the skills necessary in order to become confident, fluent readers who can demonstrate understanding of what they have read.

Develop independent learners who can select and employ research skills to locate and use a broad range of texts in order to further understanding and support learning across all areas of the Curriculum.

Develop a critical appreciation of the works of various authors, poets and illustrators in order to emulate these skills in their own writing.

Encourage ownership and care with all reading materials.

Objectives

Speaking, listening, reading and writing skills form the integral and interdependent strands necessary for language acquisition and as such cannot be treated in isolation. We teach reading strategies and skills as part of cohesive approach to language acquisition and we believe that children should:

Read with confidence, fluency and understanding.

Be taught the full range of reading strategies and skills, including:

phonics knowledge

word recognition

grammatical knowledge

contextual knowledge

Have an interest in words and their meanings, developing a rich and varied vocabulary, which should be demonstrated through reading and writing activities.

Read a range of genre (fiction and non-fiction).

Read, understand and use a range of non-fiction texts.

Use the conventions of library organisation and ICT systems to access and locate information.

Through reading and writing, develop powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.

Discuss books with reference to author, illustrator, genre, theme and characters;

To express personal responses with increasing confidence, accuracy.

Teaching Strategies:

We believe that the most successful teaching requires a range of teaching strategies in order to address the interests and needs of individual learners. Staff carefully select appropriate strategies in order to reflect and support the ability of individual pupils. The strategies employed may change as a child progresses through the year and through school.

Structure:

Foundation Stage:

Pupils are taught synthetic phonics in ability groups during discrete daily sessions where appropriate.

Pupils share and listen to a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts in daily story time sessions where appropriate.

Staff share big books and digital texts as part of shared and guided reading sessions.

The teacher or teaching assistant will hear every child read 1:1 on a regular basis where appropriate.

Pupils can borrow books from the class library to share with a parent/carer.

All pupils have a reading shelf book and a reading log when appropriate according to ability.

All pupils are assessed regularly in order to identify their knowledge and skills and to help provide the correct reading shelf level (instructional level).

Classes visit the school library.

KS1 & KS2:

All pupils have a reading shelf book and Reading Log, which should be brought to school every day.

All pupils are assessed regularly in order to assess knowledge and skills and to help place on the correct reading shelf level (instructional level).

Pupils access Whole Class Guided Reading sessions daily where appropriate, which include activities (both supported and independent) that develop decoding skills; understanding (comprehension), research skills as well as an enjoyment of reading.

Classes visit the school library to explore and understand cataloguing and employ study or research skills.

Pupils read books and extended fiction from established authors and non-fiction material in book and digital forms.

Pupils employ reading skills across all areas of the curriculum through a cross-curricular approach.

Reading targets are set for each pupil to achieve and these are reviewed regularly.

Assessment and Record Keeping

The class teacher is responsible for maintaining accurate and up to date assessment evidence for individual pupils. These plans are solely for the benefit of the class teacher and therefore do not need to be shared/given to the subject leader, unless specifically asked for.

Assessment is used to inform teaching and learning. Assessment is an ongoing process, which can take many forms such as: questioning, marking of pupil’s work or observing a child read. This information is used to place each child on the appropriate reading shelf and track progress with specific reading skills.

Staff use assessment criteria from the school’s reading assessment criteria system based on Bloom’s Taxonomy as a basis to assess progress and diagnose gaps in skills and understanding. Through assessment children are set individual reading targets to achieve. These targets are differentiated according to age and/or ability.

Home/School Partnership

Parental/carer support is integral in ensuring that every pupil reaches their potential and we seek to involve parents in supporting their child’s reading progress, through effective home/school communication.

We actively encourage parents to read with their children regularly or at least four times a week (in KS1 and KS2 books can be changed daily) as well as learning weekly spellings.

All children can choose books to take home from the School Library on a weekly basis.

Parent Workshops are held during the course of the year to help support literacy in school.

We liaise with Heswall Library: encouraging pupil and parent/carer participation in events as well membership and use of the library services.

Feedback to parents is provided regularly during Parents Meetings and formal reports (both twice yearly), through open afternoons and as appropriate during the school week through verbal communication or writing (Reading Log).

Resources

We purchase books from a range of publishers and book companies in order to provide engaging and current texts.

Individual reading shelf books are organised according to the Accelerated Reading Programme, which involves incremental Levels. Pupils that are more able are challenged with harder levels within the system. Pupils select these books to read at home. Further to this, once they have finished reading the book they will then take an online quiz in school the following day to test their understanding of the text.

Whole Class Guided Reading resources are stored with class teachers. Staff use other resources for reading, such as digital texts, materials form Ashley Booth, PM reading cards and those on loan from the Schools’ Library Service.

The school library has a significant and ever increasing number of texts which are divided into two sections: non-fiction (information) books and fiction (story and poetry) books. Year 6 pupils staff the library.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The standards of teaching and learning are regularly monitored and reviewed. The evidence gathered is used to form an action plan, which the English co-ordinator will subsequently implement.

Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)

Staff liaise closely with the SEND coordinator to address the needs of all children, including those identified as having special educational needs. Support would then be provided through placement on the appropriate stage of the school’s special needs register as well as the development of achievable targets as identified on individual Personal Targets. Targeted intervention is delivered by Teaching Assistants in the afternoon sessions. Please reference the SEND Policy for additional information.