Reading

_{Reading at Our Lady’s}

Reading is at the heart of everything we do at Our Lady's as we recognise the importance of developing reading skills, extending children’s vocabulary knowledge and encouraging reading for pleasure.  This is achieved not only in lessons but through a variety of enrichment activities including: Book Fairs, After School Book Buddies, Reading Picnics, Visits to local library etc.  Each class has designed and created inspirational reading corners to encourage reading for pleasure.

At Our Lady’s reading is one of the core elements in pupil well-being, with all children having a positive reading identity, no matter what their starting point. We acknowledge that when our children arrive in full-time school, some of them bring with them a wealth of pre-school experiences. They have been developing their language skills through talking about everyday activities; sharing favourite stories and books; using their imagination in role play; noticing letters on road signs; recognising shops or restaurants by their logos. These are just a few experiences which serve to provide a firm foundation for children learning to read, giving them an understanding that print contains a message; that pictures are story-telling clues; that we move along a line of text from left to right.

Marie Clay describes reading as ‘… a message-getting, problem-solving activity.’ From the moment a child starts at Our Lady’ School, we start to build on the experiences and skills they already own, equipping them for this ‘message-getting, problem-solving’ process.

There is a coherent whole-school strategy for promoting reading for pleasure to enhance learning. The plan is informed by staff and pupils and is supported by parents/carers and the wider community.

EYFS /Key Stage 1

At Our Lady’s we follow the ‘Read Write Inc’ phonics programme. This offers a lively, vigorous approach to learning synthetic phonics. We place great emphasis on children mastering phonics in year Reception and year 1to enable them to become skilful readers. Through a fast paced and rigorously assessed approach children are exposed to a phonics curriculum based on repetition, over teaching and a rich diet of literature. Reading is closely linked to phonics development; once children know the letter sounds they will bring home a reading book to practise reading at home, this book will be clearly matched to their reading and phonics level. Children have daily story time sessions with staff and parents are encouraged to share a wide range of books with their child at home through our book for bedtime scheme.

During years R, 1 and 2 you will be invited to join your child at termly Stay and learn Sessions and learn the sounds and how they blend together for reading. At the same time your child will learn to form their letters using lively rhyme, ready for writing words and then sentences.

Children read individually, in small groups and as a whole class. A variety of different genres are chosen at an appropriate level of ability for each group of children. As well as being able to read the text, children are encouraged to discuss the content of the book, and their opinions about people, places and events are sought. The more able readers will be asked about the varied themes of different texts.

Children, who are still accessing the RWI programme, are provided with reading books that match the current level of phonics being taught in their groups.

Key Stage 2

Reading in Key Stage 2 develops and extends the skills acquired in Key Stage 1.

A range of reading strategies are used at Our Lady’s in Key Stage 2.:

• Independent reading
• Shared reading in writing lessons and cross-curricular sessions
• Reciprocal, reading
• Fluency sessions
• Reading for pleasure in our outside areas

Children explore a wide variety of genres, both fiction and non-fiction which allows them to access, input ideas and understand what they are reading. They are given opportunities to speculate on the tone and purpose of texts they explore as well as to consider both the themes and audience.

Over the last three years over 80% of our children have reached or exceeded the required reading standard by the end of their primary education