Intent
At Hindley Junior & Infant School we believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers.
At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought provoking texts.
Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps and to target the highest possible number of children attaining the expected standard or higher.
We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves, persevere and pursue success.
Implementation
At Hindley Junior & Infant School, we use a phonics programme called Read Write Inc. This programme is a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to read and write words.
All children in Year 3 progress onto the Read Write Inc spelling scheme and, through daily spelling lessons, teachers regularly recap phonic knowledge with children through the ‘dot and dash’ activities.
All classes follow a structured 5 day approach to reading activities and, from Y2 onwards, we use a bespoke ‘Reading with RIC’ programme to teach the necessary skills for reading.
High quality texts and passages are chosen, appropriate to the expectations of the year group or ability of children, and teachers use this to model the application of the agreed reading skills.
Further to modelled sessions, children have the opportunity to read texts with greater independence and apply their skills when responding to the wide range of domain questions. More complex questions are evaluated between wider groups and teachers model how to refine answers to a high standard.
We believe that regular reading at home is an important tool in developing reading skills.
Children work through the wide variety of books. Teachers monitor their progress and determine when best for children to move onto the next level, ensuring that a range of titles have been explored and understood.
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.
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 goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.
| Reading Offer |
“We have an obligation to read aloud to our children…to do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them because they learn to read themselves.”
Everyone at Hindley J&I understands that reading is a life skill and is the bedrock for learning new knowledge. It enables children to become independent learners, and broadens their experiences and horizons. We want to develop a lifelong love for reading in all of our children.
An in-depth explanation of how we teach and promote reading, can be found in the download section below.
How is your child taught to read?
Some element of reading is incorporated in most aspects of learning, but every child has one discrete reading lesson in school every day. When the children first start school, and through to Year one/two, they have a daily phonics session. We follow the Read Write Inc phonics programme. Phonics is all about recognising that certain letters (graphemes) make certain sounds (phonemes), and then blending the sounds together to make a word. Please click the links below
How to say the sounds
Things to think about when you read to your child
Why read to your child
Understanding Phonics
Below are some useful links to online games that your child can play to reinforce your child’s learning. Games and top tips are regularly shared through
Phonics Play
Phonics Bloom
Teach your monster to read
Alphablocks on CBeebies
When the children have completed the phonics programme they move onto having daily reading lesson focusing on building vocabulary and their understanding through a variety of different texts, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
More information on how reading is taught at school can be found in the Reading Offer document in the dowload section below.
How can you help at home?
“We expect children to read at least five times per week to an adult. The length of time that they spend reading should be at least double their age. We expect parents to sign the home reading diary so the teachers know that your child has read”
When children are being taught phonics, they will bring home a phonics book linked to the sounds that they have been learning: please listen to your child read this book daily. Also, your child brings home a ‘love of Reading book’. This book is for you to share with your child and discuss the plot, the stories, the characters, the meaning of the words etc. This should be a fun activity and one which your child and you should enjoy.
When children have finished the phonics programme, they will bring a home reading book home. Each classroom has their own mini-library/reading area and children change their books when they have finished. A record is kept of how often children are reading and parents are kept up-to-date.
|
|
|
|
|
