English - Reading

Reading Curriculum Statement

Intent 

At Chaddleworth St Andrew’s and Shefford Federated Primary Schools, we are determined to support all pupils to become fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts. Through choosing high quality texts, we want all pupils to develop a love of reading and have a good knowledge of a range of authors and poets. We want our children to be able to understand more about the world in which they live, through the knowledge they gain from texts. We want our children to call on our school Christian Value of Courage, to explore genres that are new to them, to have the confidence to broaden their reading horizons and to experience rich, challenging and thought provoking texts.

We are committed to ensuring that all children, through the delivery of our systematic synthetic phonics programme, have the skills they need in early reading to decode and blend words, in order to be able to read fluently with an understanding of what they have read. 

When children leave our school, we aspire for them to be avid readers who have established the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and information. We expect our pupils to be equipped with the skills and knowledge to be able to access any subject in their forthcoming secondary education and into their adult life.

Implementation 

Early Reading / Teaching Time / Phonics

Early reading is supported through the daily teaching of phonics across the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One. We follow the phased structure of ‘Flying Start with Letters and Sounds’. This systematic synthetic phonics programme has been developed by lead school improvement professionals and practitioners in West Berkshire. The programme aligns with Letters and Sounds and is a comprehensive programme to support children in becoming fluent readers.

Phonics sessions are taught separately for each year group. Children receive a 20-30 minute phonics session each day.  Within the sessions, children learn to blend sounds and segment words into sounds for reading and spelling. We use the Rising Stars Reading Planet scheme and books are closely matched to the child’s phonics learning. Sessions are multi-sensory and active and allow the children to consolidate their learning as well as learning new sounds and skills.

Alongside the teaching of letter sounds, children are taught ‘tricky’ words for each phonic phase. At the end of each half term, children are assessed to check that they are confident with the sounds they have covered before moving on to the next set of sounds.

If necessary, children continue with Phonics sessions in Year 3 and beyond until they are fluent readers.

Parents are also invited to the ‘parent phonic meetings’ to learn more about the way that we teach phonics.

Phonics: Key Stage 2 and SEND provision

We continue to teach phonics to pupils who are not yet able to read fluently. We do this through small group learning with a teacher or TA, and where a pupil has a particular need, we arrange for the Cognition and Learning Team to complete an assessment which results in a bespoke programme of learning that a teacher or TA then follows. In some instances, pupils in Year 4 who are continuing to find the learning of phonics challenging, the SENCo will apply for a place on the Language and Literacy programme. The Language and Literacy programme is run by a specialist teacher and requires fortnightly attendance at The Winchcombe and daily practise of the skills/knowledge taught. Precision teaching is the primary teaching approach for children with SEND who require overlearning and regular opportunities to practise skills.

Reading Comprehension

At Chaddleworth St Andrew’s and Shefford C.E. Federated Primary Schools, we define reading comprehension as the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able to:

·       decode what they read;

·       make connections between what they read and what they already know;

·       think deeply about what they have read

Comprehension skills are developed in reading sessions through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction within English lessons. Within guided reading and English, children read widely a range of fiction and non-fiction texts to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum.

We use the VIPERS acronym to recall the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand to improve their comprehension of texts.

·       Vocabulary

·       Inference

·       Predict

·       Explain

·       Retrieve

·       Summarise

Oracy is prioritised in our curriculum in order to build vocabulary for all learners and increase understanding of trickier texts used across our curriculum. Discussion, questioning and learning texts with actions all increase understanding and prepare our children with the tools they need in order to be successful readers.

Throughout the school, we carefully select quality class texts to ensure that children are exposed to the best in children’s literature so that they can develop a love of reading. Texts are planned for and embedded into all curriculum areas and are used to enhance and support subject teaching. Texts are selected based on children’s interests, themes and specifically chosen to broaden children’s ranges, language and understanding and to expose the class to books that they might not select from the shelves themselves.

Our Reading Champions (pupil voice) recommend books and encourage others to read these books.

Assessment

Formative assessment and summative assessment:

• Formative (Assessment FOR learning - AfL): ongoing assessment of how children are learning, undertaken by the teacher during the course of the learning process.

• Summative (Assessment OF learning): This is the assessment of learning that takes place after the learning process, in order to measure how effective the learning has been.

These assessments will be used to inform teaching in a continuous cycle of planning, teaching and assessing. Ongoing assessments, AFL and mini assessments, will be an informal part of every lesson to check pupils’ understanding and give information, which will help the teacher to adjust day-to-day lesson plans.  

At data entry points throughout the year children’s work will be assessed and a judgement of their progress and attainment will be made in line with ARE. The outcomes will be recorded on a school mark sheet, discussed within Pupil Progress Meetings and analysed for areas of development. Where possible these judgements will be moderated with colleagues and/or the English co-ordinator. 

Towards the end of Year 1, all children take part in a statutory Phonics Screening Check to assess whether they have met the ‘expected level’ for reading using their phonics. This check involves the children reading 40 words (some real words and some ‘nonsense’ words) using the sounds they have learned. Parents are informed of the results and plans are put in place to further support any children who do not meet the threshold, ready for their re-check at the end of Year 2. Pupils who do not pass in Year 2 continue to have intervention and are tested at the end of Year 3. This continues until the pupil has passed the phonics screening test.

During the summer term in Year 2 and Year 6, pupils undertake Statutory Assessment Tests or SATs. Pupils are prepared for these assessments. Year 2 are not made aware of the upcoming SATs and all preparation is done sensitively, so that the pupils do not feel anxious to perform. In Year 6, pupils are prepared for SATs through daily revision so that they know what to expect and feel confident when completing the assessments.

In EYFS, pupils’ reading ability is closely monitored and teacher assessed. In Years 1 – 6, all the pupils complete Rising Stars assessments three times a year. Rising Stars assessments are in the style of SATs papers and allow pupils to experience this type of assessment multiple times before Year 2 and Year 6.  Pupils complete the stage appropriate assessment so if a pupil in Year 4 is working at the stage of a Year 2 pupil, they would complete the Year 2 assessment. All assessments are carried out in a sensitive manner that takes into consideration the self-esteem of pupils. Pupils who are encouraged to use the Christian Values of endurance and courage and if a pupil were anxious, that pupil would have a bespoke arrangement (for example, working 1: 1 with a teaching assistant).

Impact 

We expect that by the end of Year 6 pupils will:

·       Have a lifelong love of reading, reading widely and often

·       Be equipped with the skills and knowledge to be able to access any subject in their forthcoming secondary school and into adult life

·       Have consistently positive attitudes to reading

·       Enjoy books and talk with passion about them

·       Have experience of a range of authors and poets

Outcomes

At the end of each year we expect the children to have achieved at least Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. Some children will have progressed further and achieved greater depth (GD). We expect those children who have not reached Age Related Expectations to have made good progress from their starting point.

Pupil Voice

Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about their reading and speak with passion about their love of reading. They can articulate their opinions and express clearly their thoughts and preferences for specific writing styles of authors and poets using accurate vocabulary. They will become reflective readers.

Management of Reading

In order to achieve this the Reading co-ordinator and the Senior Leadership Team take responsibility for the monitoring of the Reading curriculum and the standards achieved by the children. The Reading co-ordinator will monitor for appropriate pitch and progression every term. This monitoring takes the form of one or more of the following:

1. lesson observations and feedback

2. learning walks and pupil voice conversations

3. planning scrutiny followed by support where necessary

4. termly data analysis