Reading
Reading
At William Stockton, our goal is to develop a love of and respect for books in all our children: we want them to have a lifelong love of reading. Our staff share their passion for reading and the children are encouraged to take books home to share with their families. Parents and carers are asked to read with their children as often as they are able.
Books are treated with care: each child is given a school book bag in EYFS and KS1 in which to carry their books between home and school along with a reading record book where parents comment on their child’s reading. Throughout KS2, the reading record book is kept in school and children, as they become more independent readers, comment and reflect upon what they have read themselves; the book bag is replaced by a school backpack.
From Reception, as soon as children can blend, they are given a book linked to their synthetic phonics focus to take home and share. These decodable books are tailored to each child to maximise their positive experience of reading - everything is at their level. Independent readers choose their own books at a level designed to lead to steady progression.
In EYFS and KS1, reading sessions focus on the physicality of reading and developing emerging comprehension. These benefit pupils, allowing them to access other curriculum areas and begin their journey as life-long learners.
Drawing Club is also enjoyed by our Nursery and Reception children. As a whole class or in groups, children are exposed to a stimulus - a picture book, tale or animation after which they spend time exploring their own ideas and creativity based upon it.
Class books are read to the children throughout our school by their teacher on a daily basis. These are selected from our reading spine of inspiring texts which embrace diversity, equality and inclusion. Children become immersed in the novels which would often be too challenging to read themselves. They hear the prosody of their teacher’s voice, which they can emulate, thus improving their own. Attention spans are greatly improved and the pupil-lead discussions which follow each session strengthen and develop the comprehension skills of all. Additionally, ambitious vocabulary is explored and placed in context.
In KS2, shared reading sessions take place four times a week focussing on retrieval and inference skills. Sessions may be based on the class read book or a text chosen which links to the wider curriculum, reinforcing learning and adding depth to other subjects. Involving quick-fire quizzes and class discussion, each session features partner and solo work allowing children to grow in confidence when answering questions both verbally and in writing. Children are given opportunities to read aloud, in pairs and in groups developing confidence and fluency.
The Accelerated Reading scheme has been successfully integrated in KS2 for over a decade. Following an initial ‘Star Reader’ assessment, a bespoke range of data is generated for each child. This includes their ZPD which indicates which texts are at an instructional level ensuring every book read leads to progression. A colour-coded banding system allows readers to take ownership of their book choices from a variety of texts including fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels. This system also allows children to clearly see their progress as they move up the colours. Each text read has an online quiz which, when passed, adds the total words read to the child’s word count - the goal is to become a ‘word millionaire’ and our children love seeing their names move up the word wall as they reach each word count milestone. Further assessments are completed each half term, providing teachers with reading ages, target areas and updated ZPDs which are shared with children in private conversations.
Catch-up phonics sessions are given to those children yet to master the alphabetic code. They develop their knowledge of synthetic phonics and progress towards becoming independent readers. The books they read are banded according to grapheme-phoneme correspondence, ensuring that they are fully decodable. Staff who provide these sessions are trained in early reading tuition and receive CPD as updates become available.
Throughout the year, various activities are arranged to promote reading: each class from Reception to Year 6 visit the local library, librarians visit our Nursery children and are also invited to school to encourage parents and children to become members of the library. World Book Day is a major event in the school calendar with a celebration assembly and prizes for the best costume. ‘Stop, Drop and Read’ days give children (and staff) the chance to stop what they are doing and read for pleasure for a short period of time when they hear the bell ring and a Book Fair is held in school twice a year. Additionally, an after-school club for our EAL pupils is boosting their reading using Flash Academy.
Listening to challenging texts at school and taking home books at an instructional level allows children to gain fluency and mastery in both decoding and understanding what they read. The focus in the early years is on developing decoding skills before moving on to hone inference and comprehension skills and expanding their vocabulary.
Our aim is to nurture lifelong readers and hope our children will curl up with a book and read their favourites over and over again - just for the love of it!
With challenging texts in school and taking home books at a comfort level, children gain fluency and mastery in both decoding and understanding their books. In the early years we develop decoding skills and then move to developing children’s inference and comprehension, whilst developing a rich and varied vocabulary.
Our aim is to nurture lifelong readers and hope children will curl up with a book and read their favourite stories over and over again. Just for the love of it!
The children are encouraged to visit the local library which has a good range of books for children and helps to encourage a love for reading!