Reading
Intent
At Scout Road Primary we believe that reading is integral to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them allowing them to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to express themselves. We would like them to appreciate our rich and varied literacy heritage and children are offered high-quality books that reflect the diversity of our modern world. We are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers, developing the habit of reading widely and often, both for pleasure and information. We want to develop children’s confidence in reading so they have both the skills to decode words in order to read fluently, develop their knowledge of grammar and linguistic conventions and also have a full understanding of what they have read.
We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves, displaying our values of determination and positivity.
Implementation
EYFS and KS1 - At Scout Road Academy we provide a balanced and engaging approach to developing early reading, teaching both decoding and comprehension skills. From Reception to Year 2, we have a rigorous synthetic phonics scheme utilising the Ruth Miskin programme which incorporates phonics, reading comprehension, writing, handwriting and guided reading. Guided reading sessions are teacher led so the children are exposed to the types of questioning that will lead to a deeper understanding of the texts. They begin to develop skills such as prediction, questioning, clarifying, summarising and inference. In Reception a buddy reading scheme with Year 6 allows the children to further practise these skills. Our philosophy is that no child is left behind on the phonics journey but in certain circumstances children are given the opportunity to either continue the Ruth Miskin programme or attend targeted phonics intervention sessions in KS2 if appropriate.
Children are expected to read at home as we believe that regular reading at home is an important tool in developing reading skills. Our read at home scheme compliments the Ruth Miskin taught within school and is made up of phonetically appropriate books. Children also have opportunity to read with an adult on a one to one basis within school and where children do not read at home, staff facilitate extra reading sessions within the school day.
At Scout Road we believe early engagement in reading and fostering a love of reading is key. As a result, we promote parent engagement through phonic workshops and invitations to read within school. We also incorporate reading challenges and at home reading reward schemes throughout the whole school journey.
KS2- Once through the Ruth Miskin scheme, Scout Road uses The Power of Reading scheme which enables us to teach literacy creatively and effectively, with high quality texts at the heart of our learning. Children are read to regularly from books that are often chosen to link with themes in order to fully immerse our children in the subject they are learning about. In addition to this the children are regularly exposed to a wide range of rhymes, poetry, fiction and non-fiction through story time and class texts. During these sessions there is a focus on comprehension, vocabulary and narrative.
Children are still expected to read at home regularly with each child receiving a Reading Record in which to record the books they are reading to an adult or independently. In this way teachers are kept aware of the frequency of reading and breadth of genres/text types.
Guided reading is based on the Reciprocal Reading approach during which the children further develop their prediction, questioning, clarifying, summarising and inference skills whilst encouraging pupil engagement and self-motivation. Those groups who need extra support have daily contact with an adult to ensure the level of questioning is appropriate. During these sessions children also have further opportunity to learn about their class theme as linking texts are carefully chosen fiction and non-fiction books.
Teacher led RIC (Retrieve, Interpret, Choice) reading lesson starters are also used as an explicit method of teaching the most important reading skills.
Impact
As we believe that reading is key to all learning, the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter the wide and varied magical worlds that reading opens up to them. As they develop their own interest in books, a deep love of literature across a range of genres cultures and styles is enhanced.
Through the teaching of systematic phonics and reading enquiry, our aim is for children to become fluent and confident readers who can apply their knowledge and experience to a range of texts through the Key Stage 2 curriculum. Our aim is that there will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils.
As a Year 6 reader, transitioning into secondary school, we aspire that children are fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure and enjoyment, as well as use their reading skills to unlock learning and all areas of the curriculum. We firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum.
SEND
The school promotes inclusion, independence and challenge for pupils with SEND through adjustments based upon individual needs; these may be to the curriculum itself or to access arrangements. Details of these adjustments can be found in Individual Education Plans or devised by the school and sometimes with advice and guidance from external agencies. SEND have unique learning profiles and needs and teachers build expertise over time in teaching the children in their class. For this reason, teachers are responsible for the differentiation of learning in their classes.
