Forest of Galtres Anglican Methodist Primary School

Reading

Intent
At Forest of Galtres, reading is at the heart of our school and our whole curriculum. We ensure that reading is a top priority and show relentless determination that every child will learn to read. By the end of their primary education, all our children become fluent, confident and enthusiastic life-long readers, enabling them to enter secondary education equipped with the skills to succeed and reach their full potential. We believe that reading underpins many aspects of learning and therefore encourages engagement with key texts across our curriculum.

Through books and a love of reading, children explore far more about the world they live in and learn to appreciate the wonders it offers. We therefore encourage and enable the exploration of a wide range of genres, authors and cultures, which in turn develops our readers into thoughtful, generous and caring individuals who live and breathe our school vision ‘Rooted and Grounded in Love for All’.

● Reception to Year 2 have daily Read Write Inc Phonics sessions.
● KS2 have a daily 30 minute reading lesson following our sequence reading curriculum.
● All children have a daily storytime session (EY/KS1 Talk through Stories/KS2 whole class novel)
● KS2 classes have a whole class novel and they also read a selection of supporting texts including poetry, song lyrics, non-fiction and articles.
● Once a week KS2 and KS1 reading buddies.
● Regular library sessions for every class.
● Reading is recorded in Home Reading Records and Class reading charts (every child reads at least 25 times a half term) certificates and wristbands are rewarded for bronze, silver and gold readers.
● Reading is embedded across the curriculum and is embedded in all foundation subjects.
● We enrich our reading curriculum through extra curricular activities, for example World Book Day, extreme reading competitions and Ready, Steady, Read.

Reading Environments

We pride ourselves on the calm and engaging environment we provide for children to read in. Our school library has recently been transformed.

Every classroom has an inviting reading area.

Each class has a dedicated time every day for the teacher to share a story. In Early Years and KS1 each class has a selection of core books which they regularly revisit. We use Read Write Inc Talk through Stories to support story time in EY and KS1 and we have a 10 minute daily vocabulary session linked to the previous week’s story. KS2 classes have a whole class novel and they also read a selection of supporting texts including poetry, song lyrics, non-fiction and articles.

Our Reading Curriculum

In KS2, our reading curriculum provides a high quality offer that fosters a love of reading through aspiring and immersing children in the literary world, creating strong levels of engagement to provide meaningful and authentic contexts for learning. Children become critical readers and acquire an authorial style as they encounter a wide-range of authors and a variety of genres.
Link: FoG Whole School Reading Map

In Early Years, our children study a high quality ‘book of the week’ in class. This is carefully selected around the specific needs of the children in our cohort and directly links to our 3 key drivers.

Link: Autumn + Spring FOG book progression Nursery – Year 1

Link: Summer FOG book progression Nursery -Year 1

The delivery of our reading curriculum through our Reading Structure follows our FoG Learning cycle approach, underpinned by Rosenshine Principles.
Link: FoG Reading Structure

Link: English – National Curriculum

Reading Plus

We use Reading Plus to accelerate pupils’ reading fluency through weekly class reading sessions. The programme enables pupils to read at an appropriate level whilst monitoring reading speed and comprehension. The programme is adaptive to pupils’ needs, and adjusts the challenge provided as and when necessary. It also develops pupils’ vocabulary through weekly vocabulary sessions.

Reading Plus provides live assessment data which allows staff to be responsive to pupil needs in their whole class reading lessons.

Link: Reading Plus Parent/Carer Guide

Phonics

We teach Phonics following Read Write Inc.

From the beginning of Reception until Year 2 phonics is taught daily in homogenous groups by members of staff trained in Read Write Inc.

Children take home phonetically decodable books that they have read in school and a matching book bag book to practise, they also borrow a picture book to share with adults at home.

In Year 1, all children take a Phonics Screening Check. Children are assessed regularly, each half term, and one-to-one reading is used to ensure all children keep up.

Some children in KS2 may still require daily phonics sessions and we use RWI Fresh Start sessions for any pupil in Year 5 and 6 that need it.

Authors

We expose the children to a wide range of authors and genres through whole school assemblies, authors of the month, within reading lessons and author meet and greets.