Reading

Curriculum

At Wheelock, the teaching of reading is of the utmost importance both as a standalone subject and embedded in all other curriculum areas. Our reading curriculum strives for all children to become confident readers who have a love of reading. We are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We will provide opportunities for all children to have access to a wide range of stimulating and vocabulary rich books (fiction, non-fiction and poetry). By the end of Key Stage Two, children will have been exposed to books from different cultures, topics, eras and genres. The curriculum is delivered through 1:1 reading, home reading, guided group sessions, inference groups, reading across the curriculum and whole class reading. By exposing the children to well thought out books, Wheelock children will have a wealth of opportunities to develop fluency, inference, comprehension skills and, most importantly, selecting appropriate books to read for pleasure.

Reading - the use of planners and Accelerated Reader

In EYFS and KS1, the children should have any home reading recorded in their reading diaries. The children should aim to read every day. Any reading completed in school will be marked in their diaries by an adult. If a child has read 5 times during a week, and their diaries have been signed, they will receive a gold star stamp. It is essential that all children read regularly, both in school and at home.

In KS2, we will be using Accelerated Reader to monitor the children's reading. We appreciate that as the children become more confident readers, they are likely to complete less quizzes due to the length of their books (and some books are not available on AR). Therefore, we will be having an open dialogue with the children about what they are reading and how often they are reading. Not every book that they read will be on Accelerated Reader, this is fine. We want the children to enjoy what they read.

Our aim is for the children to be positive about their reading and we want to recognise their efforts. It is vital that we have support at home to promote positive reading habits. The children are so enthusiastic when they have completed a book and we want to celebrate their achievements. 

If we notice that a child is not reading regularly, we will be in touch with parents to discuss what can be done to help support them.

Pedagogy

Our reading curriculum is delivered through Whole Class Reading (WCR). This is not a scheme of work, but instead planning is based on a key text. Each term will have a fiction, non-fiction and poetry focus. The VIPERS (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explain, retrieve and summarise) strands are used to inform planning. The texts have been carefully selected and, where relevant, link to history, culturally relevant or science topics. In addition, texts provide opportunities to broaden the children’s horizons and encourage them to pose questions and challenge topics and themes.

Early Reading

Early reading is the first vital building block in the children’s reading journey. By learning how to read, the children will learn how to love reading. In EYFS and in Key Stage One, the teaching of phonics is pivotal. We use the Read, Write, Inc scheme to deliver phonics and early reading from EYFS, where children begin their reading journey. They begin the year by choosing books to share at home with family members. They then begin to sound out and decode words. At the beginning of the year, children will read on a 1:1 basis until they are more confident at decoding and word recognition. As the year progresses, the children will then read in small groups and discuss the texts.

In Key Stage One, the children also participate in daily phonics sessions using Read, Write, Inc. until they have completed the scheme and have become fluent readers. All children will continue to be heard to read on an individual basis coinciding with the teaching of the Read, Write, Inc scheme. The children will also participate in whole class reading (WCR) sessions. These provide the children with a wealth of opportunities to discuss books and be exposed to new and challenging vocabulary. The children will work through a reading spine on a rolling two-year programme. These consist of fiction, non-fiction and poetry books. These have been carefully selected and include topical, historical, scientific and age-appropriate books. Each WCR session will last for 45 minutes. The WCR sessions focus on VIPERS strands. The sessions will centre around either a VIPERS strand or will concentrate on reading, decoding and fluency.

In Key Stage Two, the children continue to follow WCR. These, like Key Stage One, use fiction, non-fiction and poetry. However, the style of questioning will be more varied. Using the VIPERS, sessions will be planned using activities such as:

• Retrieval questions
• Find and copy
• Be the teacher – generate questions after reading
• The five-word prediction
• PC prove it
• Tweet it
• Emotional inference graph

Reading sessions will also allow for time to developing reading stamina and fluency by using techniques such as echo reading and keep up with the teacher. Children will also delve into song lyrics and assessment papers to help build on their understanding of a text.

All children have the opportunity to read for pleasure. Books will be shared within the classroom to build on being lifelong readers. In addition, Accelerated Reader has been implemented across the school. The children enjoy building their word count and reading a wide range of books - both in and out of school. 

Assessment

The impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter the new worlds and historical eras that reading opens up to them. We endeavour for the children to develop a love of books and words. This will be across a wide range of genres, styles, cultures and topics.

We aim for all children to become fluent and confident readers. The use of WCR, daily phonics and small group reading sessions will allow this to become possible. We aspire for the children to apply their knowledge and experience to a wide variety of texts through the Key Stage 2 curriculum.

Before leaving for high school, we aim for our children to leave Wheelock fluent, confident and capable readers who read for both pleasure and purpose. We will provide multiple opportunities to access an abundance of high-quality texts across all curriculum areas. We believe that reading is essential to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes far beyond the results of the statutory assessments.

Accelerated Reading Link:

https://global-zone61.renaissance-go.com/welcomeportal/6705703

We hope that as the children move on from Wheelock Primary Schools as lifelong readers who will read for purpose and for pleasure.