We are a reading school. Reading is fundamental to education and provides children with the skills that they need to thrive in life. The importance and prominence of reading is evident through every curriculum subject and every area of the school, from EYFS to Year 6. We not only ensure that children acquire word reading skills and language comprehension but that they develop a love of reading and become lifelong readers.  

The literacy curriculum is underpinned by termly high-quality texts. These are chosen as the best example of current literature, as inspiration for writing and to engender a love of reading for all children to listen to and to discuss:

The love of reading  

• Every child ends the school day with a story. 

• A full-time dedicated librarian ensures that children have access to regular high quality home reading texts.  

• Through our Accelerated Reader program children read a book at least once a week and take a quiz on the text to develop language comprehension. 

• Books are given as prizes from our book vending machine, on a weekly basis. 

• We have regular Open Afternoons where parents come into school to share reading and activities with children. 

• We have regular author visits to ignite the aspirations of our children and to deepen their understanding of story development.  

• Our teachers are passionate readers and engender this passion for books and reading through daily teaching, conversation and sharing the book that they are currently reading with the school.  

• Our children and staff recommend books to each other through many examples in our learning environment.  

• Our new library has been designed to provide an inviting environment and a passion for reading and has been designed by our children. 

Reading in EYFS 

• From EYFS upwards we teach synthetic phonics through the Monster Phonics Scheme. 

• All staff that teach phonics receive weekly high-quality training. 

The learning environment:  

• Our EYFS learning environment is language rich with adults engaging children in high quality dialogue during taught sessions and through child-initiated sessions. This is carefully and deliberately planned following the guidance set out within the reading framework. 

• The play to learn curriculum is underpinned by weekly high-quality texts to build a love of stories. These are shared with children through daily story time. 

• The learning environment is planned to encompass elements of the story to encourage and motivate story and reading inspired learning. 

• The learning environment is “book rich” with selected texts placed within the different areas to encourage children to see themselves as readers encouraging role play and to further highlight the importance of reading.   

• Guided reading is taught daily using the Monster Phonics book scheme.  

KS1 and LKS2 

• Teaching of synthetic phonics continues in KS1 and for some children in Lower KS2 so that all children become fluent readers. 

• Through guided sessions, children are taught specific reading comprehension strategies which focus on the learners’ understanding of written text as detailed within the EEF teaching and learning toolkit. 

• Each child will learn and practice a range of techniques which enable them to comprehend the meaning of what they read. These can include: inferring meaning from context; summarising or identifying key points; using graphic or semantic organisers; developing questioning strategies; and monitoring their own comprehension and then identifying and resolving difficulties for themselves to engender our growth mind set and build resilience. 

Upper KS2  

As with KS1 and Lower KS2 with the following amendments: 

• For those children who have missed out on high quality synthetic phonics teaching, specific phonics is taught through catch up intervention to ensure that all children become fluent readers  

• Reading comprehension strategies are taught and practice through whole class reading lessons related to the literacy text 

Assessment: 

• NFER testing 3 times per year in Years 3, 4 and 5.  

• SATs testing in Year 2 and 6.  

• Phonics screening check in Year 1.  

• Formative assessment within guided reading and phonics lessons.  

• Data from our Accelerated Reader program.  

• All on a page assessments for every child.