Reading

Reading is at the heart of every thing we do at Turners Hill CofE Primary School. We are passionate about reading and supporting children to become confident readers. We believe in both the importance of developing children’s discrete word-reading skills and comprehension and the need to engender their love of books and reading.

At Turners Hill CofE Primary School, we aim to create life-long readers by:

• Placing reading and books at the centre of the curriculum.
• Understanding that reading is a life skill for all children.
• Knowing that every child can learn to read with the right teaching and support.
• Acknowledging that not all children will have had the opportunity to develop a love of reading at home, so this has to be taught and encouraged at school –just like any other area of the curriculum.
• Building time for all children to read independently, read aloud and be read to during the school day.
• Developing a coherent whole-school strategy for promoting reading for pleasure.
• Believing that every teacher should be an advocate for reading and share this with their pupils.
• Involving parents in their child’s reading journey to ensure the culture of reading that the school has developed extends into the home.

We ensure our curriculum promotes diversity, inclusion and tolerance and know books can be invaluable in helping to teach children about different cultures. Through a book they can experience and understand a character’s point of view different to theirs. We hope children feel empowered to discuss what makes us unique, valued and respected.

All pupils must be encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world they live in, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum ... Reading also feeds pupils’ imagination and opens up a treasure house of wonder and joy for curious young minds.’
(National Curriculum in England, DfE, 2014)

Every child takes part in daily guided reading sessions where they explore a carefully selected variety of texts. They will learn and read about poetry, non-fiction, fiction and picture books. In addition to daily guided reading, we provide opportunities for one to one reading and time to read independently.

Books are celebrated in all subjects but especially in English (writing). A good-quality text provides opportunities for the children to be engaged in work across the National Curriculum programmes of study for English.

Good, text-based, whole-class teaching provides opportunities to learn and reinforce:

• Learning new vocabulary and meaning of words in different contexts.
• Grammar and punctuation techniques and considering their effect.
• Comprehension by listening to, reading and discussing difficult texts.
• Writing (both transcript and composition).
• Spoken language through participating in discussions about books, learning from both specific language modelled by the teacher and also that of their peers.
• A love of reading of new authors and exposure to new material.

Reading independently at school for a sustained period is important if children are to develop as self-reliant readers, able to select a book and sustain their concentration. Therefore, to ensure children are progressing with their reading, we assess and provide children with a band colour. They can use this in the classroom and library to select a book.

How do we encourage a ‘Love of Reading’ at Turners Hill CofE Primary School?

We promote a love of reading by:

• Building confident readers and ensuring they are supported at all stages of their reading journey.
• Having exciting and engaging reading corners where books are banded appropriately for independent selection.
• An inviting library where children want to spend time.
• Reading incentives such as ‘Get Caught Reading’ or ‘Treat Time.’ ‘Get Caught Reading’ involves the children receiving rewards for choosing to read during playtimes. ‘Treat Time’ rewards the children for reading regularly at home and is tracked through a reading diary between parents and school. (Please see reading incentives letter below).
• Celebrating authors and books by reading to the class regularly.
• Having a diverse and varied repertoire of books to share and to select.
• Displaying the children’s work from guided reading.
• Immersing children through a range of engaging activities to participate in relating to the class read. For example, a postcard from a character, painting a scene from the book, recreating freeze frames and speech bubbles for characters.

When you enter the school, we hope to bring the ‘Love of Reading’ to life in the classroom, corridors and in our library. The children are passionate about books they have read and love to share their experiences with their peers. Every class has a legacy board where the previous class recommend books to the new class. It can be difficult to find age appropriate books so please use the ‘Reading Lists’ below to support with reading at home.

Phonics

At Turners Hill CofE Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. We know that the ability to read is imperative to the development, progress and enjoyment in all subjects. That is why we teach reading through Read Write Inc, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching elements of phonics in Little Oaks pre-school such as modelling bouncy and stretchy sounds. Then phonics is taught daily using Read Write Inc resources in Early Years and KS1 which support us in enabling our children to meet or exceed the demands of the National Curriculum and ensures that all pupils make sufficient progress. Since RWI resources have been introduced at Turners Hill, we have consistently had above national phonics screening results.

What is Read Write Inc?

Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. The programme is designed for children aged 4-7. RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/.

How it works at Turners Hill CofE Primary School

Phonics and reading sessions take place daily from 9:00 –9:45 allowing children to develop a deeper understanding of their phonics in a longer session. Children are grouped according to their ability. Whole class guided reading is taught weekly where the children have the opportunity to put their phonological skills into practice.

Children learn to read with decodable phonics books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of sounds and ‘tricky’ words. We know how important it is that parents/carers are involved in their child’s reading journey. Therefore, RWI phonics books are also sent home for the children to further develop their knowledge of the same sounds.

Regular assessments are completed to ensure children are progressing and moving groups in accordance with their knowledge and understanding. With the results, we are able to identify children who may require additional support.

Early Years Reading

In Early Years, developing the skills of early reading is a priority. One areas we focus on for early years is to start their ‘Love of Reading’ journey at Turners Hill CofE Primary School and if they’re in our pre-school, the journey will begin here. We encourage reading throughout the day and continue to enhance the child’s journey with reading at home. To inspire a ‘Love of Reading,’ we encourage parents/carers to read to their child regularly and provide them with books to share. At school, we have wide range of quality texts that are promoted throughout the learning environment both inside and out side. Children enjoy the opportunities to share, listen, act out, re-tell and read books daily. Book corners are stimulating and accessible, owned and loved by children.

In addition to sharing many books, reading is taught through whole class phonics sessions. During the summer term, we aim to transition children to phonics groups merged with key stage one. Children start by choosing ‘sharing books’ to enjoy with their adults at home and will shortly progress to taking simple CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) blending books at home as well as ‘red ditty’ sheets. These resources support children with recognising and blending their initial set one sounds. Once children are confident in recognising and blending their set one sounds, they will take home ‘red ditty’ decodable texts, closely matched to their phonological ability from our wide range of book banded books. Additionally, children can choose books from the book corner to take home and share alongside the decodable texts, to support their comprehension and of course, their ‘Love of Reading’.