Being an Author (Reader)
Lead early reading and phonics: Mrs Rachael Hynes and Mrs Beth LeCluse
KS1 & KS2 Readers Lead: Mrs Nikita Reid
Intent:
At Queen’s Crescent we aim to foster a love of reading in all children regardless of background or ability. Our aim is that the children in our school are exposed to a broad and inspiring range of fiction and non-fiction texts throughout their time with us in order to spark a life-long love of books. Our intention is to build learners who begin their journey by learning the mechanics of decoding individual words and leave us as effortless readers who are able to describe, discuss and debate their understanding of texts from an extensive selections of works from across time-periods, genres and cultures. Through effective reading, we endeavour to support children in accessing our Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme (SSP). Our goal is to help children recognise the endless possibilities that reading can offer.
Aims:
The national curriculum for design and technology aims to ensure that all pupils:
How do we teach reading and why has this approach been chosen?
Reading is delivered as a discrete subject.
Phonics is taught daily in all classes from FS2 –Y2 with staff systematically teaching learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns or graphemes which represent them. Weekly and termly breakdowns ensure that all staff responsible for delivering phonics know what to teach and when to teach it. Children are encouraged to think like ‘readers’ in all contexts.
Our reading curriculum follows a whole class VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval, Sequencing (KS1)/Summarising (KS2)) from year 1. KS2 VIPER lessons happen four times per week.
What our reading lessons involve:
Re-cap prior knowledge |
These information recall activities may involve :
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New information presented in small and simple steps |
Children are then given time to practise applying the new grapheme, spelling rule, grammar or vocabulary in order to build long-term memory. |
Teachers pose carefully considered questions in VIPERS and group reading |
This allows pupils to deepen their understanding |
Clear modelling |
Teachers demonstrate a new concept or approach to learning. |
Scaffolding |
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Working Walls |
In FS2 and KS1 graphemes and tricky words that have been taught so far are displayed. Towards the end of Year 1 and in Year 2 VIPERS questions are displayed as prompts. |
Children’s learning is documented in VIPERS books
Reading outcomes:
Reading is monitored by the Reading leads throughout the year in the form of book looks, lesson observations and pupil conferencing. From Year 1, classroom displays evidence the key VIPERS question areas. Across the school, reading is promoted through inviting reading corners, displaying the current class book being shared and prioritising daily story time. Our Reading Spine ensures that all children access texts which are appropriate for their age group, ensuring a clear progression through the school. In whole class reading lessons, children have access to their own copy of the text, empowering them to become independent and confident young authors.
In the Foundation Stage and in Key Stage 1 teachers continually assess children as part of their daily phonics lessons and group reading sessions. From Key Stage 1, teachers will also use VIPERS lessons to assess the children’s reading skills, including their ability to comprehend the texts they read. Reading objectives act as a reference for end of year expectations for each year group and teachers are aware of the entry and exit points for their children.
The reading leads work closely with the link governor to assess the impact of the reading curriculum each year.