Reading
Magic of Stories
We prioritise daily time across the whole school for teachers to read aloud to their class, using the books selected on the reading spines.
In EYFS and early KS1 the same book will be read each day over the week using the Magic of Stories, storytelling framework from the English Hub. Later in KS1 and throughout KS2 the magic of stories are often novels which are read and enjoyed over a longer period of time.
Reading Spine
Here is the plan showing the books that the children will read during this year at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School. The books are carefully selected by the class teacher to include a range of high quality texts which are recommended for each age group.
Statement of Intent
Our aim in reading is to provide an exciting and inspiring reading curriculum which develops a passion for a life-long love of reading. We want our children to be confident and fluent readers who continually build their vocabulary and knowledge about the wider world through the books that they read. Through access to high quality texts, our children become familiar with a wider range of authors, analysing their style and intent to support their development in writing.
Our inspiring learning environment puts reading at the heart, with displays, class libraries and the wider environment having the focus on literature.
Statement of Implementation
Reading is at the heart of our curriculum at St Josephs, we provide opportunities throughout our curriculum for children to read widely, practicing and embedding their skills from reading lessons.
Our reading curriculum is built around inspiring authors and high quality texts, which are carefully selected to meet the unique needs of our school community. We are building our reading community through the following elements:
- communication and language
- effective SSP
- reading comprehension
- rich reading culture and climate
- Communication and Language
Statement of Impact
As a result of the high quality reading provision at St Joseph’s, our children become confident, fluent and independent readers who have a love of reading and books.
They can apply their reading skills to the wider curriculum and learning of wider community and environmental issues to develop into global citizens.
By the end of Key Stage 2 our children will have been exposed to a wide variety of authors and text types, building their knowledge and confidence over time.
Through appropriate summative and formative assessment, teachers will see a steady improvement in children’s reading skills, in addition to providing teachers with the tools to design, plan and implement the next steps for progression.
Reading Comprehension and Fluency
EYFS
- A teaching sequence for teaching rhymes and songs has been developed to ensure that pupils learn and remember a variety of rhymes and songs over the reception year.
- Pupils have regular story time sessions, in addition to the Magic of Stories, where pupils read and explore a range of fiction, non-fiction and rhyming books. Provision enhancements are provided linking to the reading spine stories, to further develop their comprehension and story-telling skills.
- Little Wandle group reading sessions are used to apply the phonics skills to reading, build fluency, prosody and comprehension skills.
- Daily phonics lessons build up knowledge of the alphabetic code and support the fluency with reading.
KS1
- In KS1 we follow a 3 week reading into writing cycle, which has a strong focus orally re-telling the text, explicitly teaching vocabulary and comprehension skills which then follows into the writing sequence.
- Little Wandle group reading sessions are used to apply the phonics skills to reading, build fluency, prosody and comprehension skills.
- Daily phonics lessons build up knowledge of the alphabetic code and support the fluency with reading.
KS2
- In KS2 we follow a 3 week reading into writing cycle, which has a strong focus orally work, explicitly teaching vocabulary and comprehension skills which then follows into the writing sequence.
- Stand alone reading comprehension lessons take place, building up confidence with the skills of analysing texts to build up comprehension.
- Teachers plan for regular opportunities to read across the curriculum, giving the opportunity to develop vocabulary, subject knowledge, fluency and comprehension.
Phonics
Statement of Intent
At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. We start teaching phonics in EYFS and follow the Little Wandle SSP, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum.
Statement of Implementation
We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games. We follow the Little Wandle teaching sequence.
- Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
- Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
- Children in Year 2 consolidate their learning with the phase 5 review unit and a bridging unit to teach spelling.
Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
We timetable additional phonics lessons for any child in KS2 who has is not a fluent reader or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen and they can access the Ks2 curriculum. We use the Little Wandle assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these.
Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
The Reading Leader and SLT regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.
Statement of Impact
Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.
Assessment for learning is used:
- daily within class to identify children needing keep-up support
- weekly in the review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.
Summative assessment is used:
- every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
- by SLT to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.
Statutory assessment
Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.