English (Reading)

At Elsley Primary, we believe that reading is a fundamental skill which enables children to access all areas of learning, ensuring they can make progress and succeed. Our aim is for children to view reading as an enjoyable activity and develop a love of reading, a good knowledge of a range of authors and texts and to be able to understand more about the world in which they live through the knowledge they gain from texts. We believe that all pupils should become fluent, confident readers who can read a range of genres and text types and who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts.

Our curriculum is designed so that, alongside reading for pleasure, children develop the ability to use their reading skills to research and gather new knowledge and understanding. Children are explicitly taught the following reading strategies that they use to comprehend a text:

• Predicting
• Asking questions
• Clarifying
• Summarising
• Inferring
• Evaluating
• Making connections

We aim for children to express opinions, articulate feelings, and formulate responses - developing their understanding, vocabulary, and ideas through our rich reading curriculum. We use a range of high quality texts across the school. These reflect our diverse community and cover a variety of genres and themes. Our Children are taught the learning behaviours that should be visible during ‘book talk’ and encouraged to use these when discussing a text:

• Support and actively listen
• Discuss and explain our ideas
• Take responsibility for our own and our group’s learning

Children are encouraged to ‘agree’, ‘build on’ and respectfully ‘challenge’ others, in order to develop their ability to engage in classroom discussions about a text and support character development in line with our school ethos and values. Elsley Primary is a reading school, and we pride ourselves on the opportunities we provide for our children to be fully immersed in activities and opportunities surrounding reading.

At Elsley, reading takes place across the curriculum.

Reading is taught using:

• Whole Class Guided Reading where the class reads the same text
• Individual reading where children read to an adult 1:1
• Class novels (reading spines) or story time sessions where the class listen to their teacher read in order to model reading skills
• Computer based programmes such as Collins e-books and Bug Club
• Independent reading where children read banded books matched to ability and, later, books of their choice

Early Years

Reading for Pleasure	Fluency	Comprehension
Fortnightly library session Open reading area Daily story and rhyme time Cross curricular stories to support learning across the curriculum	1:1 reading with all children Computer based programme: Collins Banded Books and trackers alongside Little Wandle	Questioning to support comprehension

 Key Stage 1

Reading for Pleasure	Fluency	Comprehension
Fortnightly Library session Open reading area Story, rhyme, or poetry time Cross curricular reading to support learning across the curriculum – Brent Library	1:1 reading with targeted children Computer based programme: Collins Little Wandle assessment Banded Books and trackers alongside Little Wandle	Whole class or carousel guided reading sessions according to needs

Key Stage 2

Children continue to take part in whole class Guided Reading sessions with carefully chosen, high-quality fiction and non-fiction texts. We focus on the skills of Vocabulary, Inference, Predicting, Clarifying, Questioning, Summarising, Making Connections and Evaluating. In key stage 2, it becomes important that children use evidence from the text to justify their thoughts, opinions and ideas. Children read a variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry across the curriculum, including online texts.

Reading for Pleasure	Fluency	Comprehension
Fortnightly Library session Open reading area Story time – Reading Spines Cross curricular reading to support learning across the curriculum – Brent Library	1:1 reading with targeted children Computer based programme: Collins and Bug Club Little Wandle assessment Banded Books Reading and half termly tracker	Whole class guided reading sessions including selfies and big picture Targeted support where necessary

Progression

The texts, skills and understanding that pupils are required to demonstrate have been carefully sequenced and planned systematically to ensure that skills and knowledge are built on year by year and maximise learning for all children. 

 

Classroom Organisation

Reading skills are taught in whole class lessons, to allow all children access to age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. Within lessons, teachers and teaching assistants target support for learners where necessary to enable all children to achieve at an age-related level where possible. Children working at a level of greater depth are also given opportunities to demonstrate further understanding through extended answers, targeted questioning requiring more reasoned answers and making greater links across and between texts. In Early Years and Key Stage 1, teachers will listen to children read on a 1:1 basis. In Key Stage 2, an adult will listen to targeted children read on a 1:1 basis. During paired reading time, adults will rotate around the classroom and listen to all children read their banded books; children’s progress is logged half-termly using a tracker.

 

Reading for Pleasure

We have a strong understanding of, and appreciation for, the importance of children reading for pleasure. We have an annual reading challenge which supports this and encourages children’s reading fluency. Children are encouraged to read a variety of text types that are appropriate to the individual's reading level. Progression through their reading journeys results in bookmark stamps which are exchanged for prizes that are won on a half-termly basis, in whole school assemblies. This scheme encourages all children, of all abilities, to read at school and at home, strengthening the links between home and school. We have reading ambassadors in each year group who encourage participation, co-ordinate and run the reading challenge alongside teachers.

We hold to a collaborative approach to the evaluation of the impact of our curriculum where this process is not ‘done to’ our staff, but ‘with them’.  In order to judge how successful our curriculum has been designed to promote the learning of the Reading National Curriculum, pupil outcomes are evaluated against a range of formal and informal assessments in addition to pupil voice. These enable us to capture what pupils know, apply and understand about they have been taught.

We look for the following impact in our pupils:

• To enjoy reading across a range of genres

• To succeed in reading lessons at all abilities

• To use a range of strategies for decoding words

• To have a good knowledge of a range of authors

• To be ready to read in any subject

We also use the following assessments to inform impact:

Statutory Assessment	Year 1: Children take part in the Phonics Screening check. Year 2: Children are assessed in Reading as part of the end of Key Stage 1 SATs. Year 6: Children are formally assessed in Reading as part of the end of Key Stage 2 SATs.
In School Assessments	Little Wandle assessment All children are monitored half-termly to track progress in reading fluency through banded books. Children in key stage 2 undertake termly assessments using the NFER reading tests. Progress is measured using raw scores.
Informal assessments	Teachers continuously assess children’s attainment and progress during individual and whole class reading sessions. Children use Collins e-books and/or Bug Club (whole school) and Read Theory (UKS2), teachers are able to monitor progress by checking the levels of the quizzes taken by children and their success rate in these quizzes. Pupil voice to assess attitudes towards Reading and learning.