Reading
Intent
At Godolphin Primary School we aim to inspire a love of reading that will continue for years to come. This is approached through meaningful reading experiences inspired by inspirational texts. We encourage and plan for a range of reading experiences so that pupils can apply their reading skills across the curriculum. At Godolphin we:
● Ensure progression of reading and comprehension skills across the school.
● Teach reading through Phonics sessions, Guided Reading, whole class shared reading, and through opportunities for children to read with an adult on a 1:1 basis.
● Develop a culture of reading that involves strong links with parents who actively engage in regular reading at home with their children.
● Provide meaningful reading experiences using the contexts inspired by quality core texts and the whole school topic themes.
● Use whole class story time, or class novel, as an essential part of our whole school approach, to enrich the scope of texts that children access, secure high expectations, inspire learners,
and model lively, joyous reading aloud.
Implementation
Phonics
At Godolphin, we follow the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme to introduce the skill of learning to read.
Read Write Inc. Phonics is a DfE-validated systematic synthetic phonics programme with a whole-school approach to teaching early reading and writing. It teaches children to read accurately, fluently and with understanding, to spell, and to write their own compositions.
We ensure that the teaching of phonics is lively, interactive and investigative. We use a multisensory approach so that children learn from simultaneous visual, audio and kinaesthetic activities, designed to secure essential phonic knowledge and skills. Staff work hard to promote phonics at every opportunity so that pupils recognise that it is not a standalone subject, but an integral part of all their reading and writing development.
Reading Sessions
Through independent reading, shared reading, guided reading groups and reading for pleasure, reading in Key Stage 2 develops and extends the phonetic skills acquired during the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1.
Children explore a wide variety of genres, both fiction and non-fiction which allows them to access, input ideas and understand what they are reading. They are given opportunities to speculate on the tone and purpose of texts they explore as well as to consider both the themes and audience.
Our children take part in Guided Reading sessions to develop their reading ability and comprehension through specific teaching. These books are intended to extend and challenge pupils
to motivate next step progression, whilst allowing them to take risks, explore new strategies, encounter new vocabulary, and demonstrate comprehension with the support of the adults within the classroom.
Early Reading Books
The core Read Write Inc. Phonics Storybooks are used for home reading: children read the story three times at school and read it again at home to build their confidence and fluency. Book Bag books are supplementary books for children to practise sound-blending. Each book corresponds with a core Read Write Inc. Phonics book. It has a similar theme and the same graphemes. For example, the Book Bag Book Red Hat Rob builds on the core storybook, Black Hat Bob.
Reading in Key Stage 2
As the children progress we aim to build on the reading experiences already acquired, to develop independence, fluency and self-reliance. A greater variety of texts are made available to allow for more depth, choice and enjoyment. More varied texts are available to support the widening interest shown as children progress; environmental newspapers, magazines, multicultural texts, plays, nonfiction, poetry, CDs, dictionaries, thesaurus etc.
The library is timetabled to allow for extension skills such as skimming, scanning, reference and research.
We aim to expand the skills gained earlier in the school by keeping a teaching focus on reading, drawing attention to the structure of a variety of texts, helping pupils to adapt their style of reading to suit the purpose (skim, scan, read critically).
The higher order reading skills must be taught and should not be confined to the Literacy lesson alone.
The opportunity to read texts from different media, to research, investigate, to sift, select and take notes from text, to question, challenge and look for bias in texts, to scan and skim for project information and use this purposefully can be found in many different subject areas. As soon as children can read we aim to support them in their need to become independent, helping them to develop fluency, expressiveness and critical awareness. It is important that older children still share books and sets of books during guided reading sessions. A range of high quality texts are used to deliver this having full texts in addition to the use of extracts.
Parental Involvement
An introductory phonics workshop is offered to parents of Reception pupils. During this workshop, parents are made aware of how phonics is taught, what support can be given at home, and the national expectations of attainment for the end of the year. The vital part parents play in supporting reading in the home environment is also acknowledged and discussed.
Parents are supported with strategies of pronunciation and the skill of blending phonemes to read words through access to Read Write Inc. online portal and Oxford Owls online resources.
Impact
Assessment
Pupils are assessed through quality questioning, discussions and observations throughout the day. Assessments are annotated during guided reading or one to one reading sessions.
Phonics is assessed daily. Children are assessed throughout every lesson. Every time partner work is used the teacher assesses the progress of the children.
The teacher assesses how children:
• Read the grapheme chart;
• Read the green and red word lists;
• Decode the ditty/story;
• Comprehend the story.
Formal assessment is carried out every half-term by the Read Write Inc. Leader using the Read Write Inc. assessments. This allows for achieving uniformity within each group and
indicates the correct access point for new entrants Children who did not successfully pass the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check continue to be supported and assessed throughout Year 2.
Provision is made for children who need extra support or extension, through regular interventions and quality first teaching. Any children who are not working at the expected level in phonics by the end of KS1, receive additional phonic intervention during KS2. Staff working within KS2 are supported to deliver these interventions through personalised support such as training and observations of phonics in practise.
Equal Opportunities
Every child, regardless of gender, cultural background, class, disability or ability, will have the opportunity to accomplish their full potential and will receive the support to realise this.
Training and Professional Development
Ongoing training is made available to ensure a high level of staff knowledge and expertise in order to facilitate effective learning and teaching.
Monitoring and Review
The implementation and ongoing effectiveness of this policy will be monitored by the English Subject Leader.