THE FEDERATION OF BRAMPTON AND RINGSFIELD CEVC PRIMARY SCHOOLS Reading Policy October 2014 Review in October 2015
OUR AIM Our aim at the Federation of Brampton and Ringsfield CEVC Primary Schools is for children to develop a love of reading and to become confident, secure readers by the end of Key Stage 1. We want our children to quickly develop automatic decoding skills and to progress rapidly from learning to read to reading to learn. As the children grow, we want them to become enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry, drama, non-fiction and media texts. We want children to develop a love for literature. Children across our Federation will have a raised awareness of how print, pictures and visual media can all convey meaning. We believe that becoming a fluent reader plays a vital role in preparing our children for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. PHONICS POLICY The ultimate goal of learning to read is comprehension. It follows that, in order to comprehend written texts, children must learn to recognise decode the words on the page. The Rose Report (2006) identified that the teaching of an effective, systematic, synthetic phonics programme is the most effective approach to teaching children to read. The Department for Education reaffirms this view and requires all educational settings to implement such a programme. Our Federation s Phonics Policy outlines the ways in which we teach phonic skills in order for our children to become fluent readers. This reading policy must be read in conjunction with the phonics policy. OBJECTIVES Children will develop a love of reading: they will have an interest in a wide range of texts and will read for enjoyment and information. Children will use phonics and a range of other clues (pictures, context, and grammatical awareness) to decipher new words. Children will read with confidence, fluency and understanding orchestrating a range of strategies independently to monitor and selfcorrect. Children will regularly have the opportunity to listen to and read stories. Children will develop the skill of reading silently. Children will enjoy sharing reading with their parents/carers, teachers and peers. Children will understand a range of text types and genres and develop skills appropriate to each such as:
o o o o responding to reading imaginatively, responding to characters, plots and ideas in stories and poems. Being able to find information from books and online sources to pursue independent enquiry. knowing how to use clues to infer information, reach conclusions, evaluate and predict what might happen. being able to distinguish between fact and opinion. APPROACHES TO THE TEACHING OF READING PHASE BY PHASE NURSERY As children arrive in Nursery they are given a book bag and encouraged to change their book with parents during the first ten minutes of the school day. Children have a range of story books to choose from including familiar texts and books with repetitive language which they can recall more easily. Children are read to every day: each session ends with storytime. Children are encouraged to listen with enjoyment to and respond to stories. They also develop an awareness of the difference between pictures and text and to understand basic book skills how to hold a book, where the book starts, etc. Relevent stories are chosen to tie in with all activities in the Nursery, and the children respond in appropriate ways (eg: planting seeds as in Jasper s Beanstalk, or watching tadpoles develop as in Tadpole s Promise). Eyecatching displays featuring the children s work reinforce this bookwork. RECEPTION Building on what pupils already know about reading and stories, the teacher helps develop early reading behaviours through shared reading, e.g. holding a book the right way up and following the text from left to right, knowing that print carries meaning, identifying the protagonists in a story, recognising signs and symbols in environmental print. The pupils develop curiosity and enthusiasm about print. They are able to select, read and talk about a range of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. They have many stories told and read to them and they have opportunities to retell narratives themselves. The focus, particularly at the early stage, is on developing understanding and conveying meaning of the texts they read and on helping children to develop the skills they need to read words accurately.
Every child reads individually, weekly to a teacher. Progress is recorded in the child s blue home-school link book. Children may additionally be heard read by other members of staff or volunteer parent helpers. Guided Reading in the Foundation Stage Children in Reception take part in group guided reading sessions after the first half term of the school year so that they can use their phonics knowlege. The children are grouped according to their reading ability. The books the children read during guided reading are selected for their simple, decodeable or repetitive text. The aim is for children to be able to read 90% of a text independently. Guided reading sessions often follow the Teach, Practise, Apply routine. The process of reading is first modelled by the teacher: the teacher models saying the sounds in words and blending them together. They talk together about what is happening in the pictures. The children then practise the reading skill focused on by reading together with the teacher and other children. For the last section of the book the children apply what they have learnt and read independently. At the start of the year, we expect that children will be saying the letter sounds that they have learnt to recognise, but as the year goes on we expect them to start to be able to blend sounds and recognise highfrequency words in order to be able to read simple sentences. The Early Years Foundation Stage learning environment The Early Years Foundation Stage learning environment is used to value books and to promote the importance of words, texts and reading. Letters are displayed in each classroom, both alphabetically and as the children learn them following the Letters and Sounds programme. High-frequency and WOW words are displayed and children are encouraged to refer to them in their reading and writing. An inviting reading corner with comfortable seating and beautifully displayed books is maintained. A listening centre with story cassettes and books is also available. Activities linked to letter recognition, high-frequency words, stories and non-fiction texts (such as forming playdough letters, whiteboards, pens and high-frequency words, fish the letter) are a daily part of children s adult-initiated activities and are available for self-selection too. Children in the Early Years also have access to roleplay areas in their classes where opportunities for reading are provided. Key stories and texts are linked to our rolling programme of work, and these are celebrated with bright displays. Displays linked to topic work also always include relevant books for children to refer to. Role play areas have topic words displayed.
Home-school reading in the Early Years Foundation Stage In Reception a wider range of home-school reading activities begin. These include: Reading books: age-related reading books are taken home for the children to read to their parents/carers. These are changed at least once a week, or sooner where appropriate. The books are banded to support the children s level of reading. The first books pupils take home are without words to encourage talk and discussion of pictures. Pupils also take home library books to share with parents. High-frequency words are given out in sets. As each child learns each set, they move on to the next set. Story books are also sent home. The children have a greater degree of choice over these books. They are sent home to support the development of a child s love of story, but they are not books that the children are expected to be able to read independently. Early Years Foundation Stage Assessment and Record Keeping The monitoring of progress in reading is the responsibility of the class teacher with the support of the leadership team and the SENCO where appropriate. Assessment is a positive, regular record of the pupils progress. It enables staff to plan from concrete evidence of achievements. Teachers use individual learning journeys as their ongoing assessment of children s progress in reading as in all curriculum areas. The EYFS Progression document is updated half-termly. This is a summative assessment of progress. Individual reading should be recorded in a child s blue home-school ink book. These comments should be positive and also informative with a brief comment about the specific skill focused on. Guided reading should be monitored using a grid for each group. Details for monitoring progression with phonics is outlined in the Phonics Policy. READING IN KEY STAGES 1 AND 2 In Key Stages 1 and 2, children are given a variety of opportunities to access texts. These are: Shared reading Guided reading Independent / silent reading
Phonics work Home/school reading Reading comprehensions with written answers Sharing a class novel READING IN KEY STAGE 1 Pupils have a structured and systematic phonics lesson each day for twenty minutes. At Key Stage 1 the emphasis is on developing pupils interest and pleasure as they learn to read independently and with confidence. They focus on words and sentences and how they are put together to form texts. They bring meaning to the texts they read and say what they like or dislike about them. Shared Reading in Key Stage 1 Enlarged texts and big books fiction and nonfiction - are used for shared reading at Key Stage 1. Teachers model a range of reading strategies, including the identification of sentence structure and the function of punctuation marks, and give pupils opportunities to practise phonic skills and word recognition in context. Guided Reading in Key Stage 1 In guided reading teachers support the reading of groups of pupils of similar reading ability as they apply the range of reading strategies taught in shared time, thus providing them with the necessary help to read the text independently. The texts selected for guided reading are at an instructional level, i.e. group members are able to read and comprehend 90% of the text. Texts of graded difficulty are chosen carefully and matched to the reading ability of the group. Teachers identify the focus for the guided reading groups and plan book introductions accordingly. Independent Reading in Key Stage 1 The pupils have many opportunities to read and select books independently. There are some opportunities for the teacher, other adults or older pupils to share books with individuals, but the majority of the teaching of reading occurs during shared and guided reading. Pupils making slower progress with reading are still heard read individually several times a week. For individual reading the pupils make guided choices from the school s banded reading programme, or carefully selected books from a range of reading scheme and non-scheme texts. They also choose books from the
Library. These books are monitored by the class teacher. Key Stage 1 Assessment and Record Keeping See below READING IN KEY STAGE 2 At Key Stage 2 pupils meet a wider range of texts in fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Teaching focuses on developing pupils reading skills (e.g. generalising and making inferences by drawing on evidence from the text.) through shared and guided reading. Shared Reading in Key Stage 2 Enlarged texts continue to be used, as do shared books, photocopied texts and online resources with the focus on the writer s intentions, use of language or one or more of the Assessment Foci for Reading. In addition to straightforward comprehension, teachers encourage a high level of interaction with pupils and invite their individual responses and interpretations. The texts chosen offer challenge to all pupils in the class. While judicious use of extracts and short stories occurs, fiction objectives relate frequently to a novel read outside the literacy lesson or to non-fiction texts related to other topic areas, but the learning focus continues to be based on the assessment focuses for reading. Guided Reading at Key Stage 2 Guided reading sessions at Key Stage 2 for fluent, independent readers take different forms according to their purpose, but they remain linked to objectives from the National Curriculum 2014. Those pupils who are not yet reading with fluency continue to follow the Key Stage 1 model of guided reading with a greater focus on developing fluency and independence. Independent activities are linked to shared or guided reading lessons. Sometimes these work best before the reading of the text (e.g. raising prior knowledge, making predictions on the basis of title and illustration, whetting the reader s appetite), sometimes during (e.g. giving advice to a character at a point of crisis or decision, noting personal response in an on-going
reading journal), sometimes after (providing opportunities for reflection on the whole text, mapping a character s literal or emotional journey). The intention is to illuminate text and keep the pupils focused on their personal response and critical interpretation, not to provide holding activities. Independent Reading in Key Stage 2 In their independent reading pupils should increase their ability to read challenging and lengthy texts, but the emphasis should be on reading a wide range of material that enables the pupils to reach informed decisions about personal reading choices. Teachers have particular responsibilities to monitor and provide guidance to pupils about their independent reading by setting clear goals, targets and ensuring that a wide range of genre is read. Key Stages 1 and 2 Assessment and Record Keeping The monitoring of progress in reading is the responsibility of the class teacher with the support of the leadership team and the SENCO where appropriate. Assessment is a positive, regular record of the pupils progress. It enables staff to plan from concrete evidence of achievements. Pupil Asset is used to record progress in reading. This needs to be updated by teachers every half-term. This is a summative assessment of each child s achievement. Termly pupil-progress meetings are held to identify children who have made accelerated or slow progress. It is the responsibility of teachers to prepare the documentation for these meetings. Assessment of guided reading should be monitored using the pupil asset assessment. Twice a year a reading-age test is administered using the Single Word Reading Test. This provides a reading age from 6-16. This information should be submitted to the Subject Leader and shared with parents. This also informs the class teacher which children need intervention to accelerate the progress in reading. Records of individual reading should be recorded in a child s blue homeschool link book. All intervention, either in small groups or 1:1 should be recorded on session-bysession monitoring sheets. These are used when gathering evidence about a child s progress towards the targets on their IEP. In KS1 a record of progress in phonics should be maintained on pupil asset. This is submitted each term to the Subject Leader.
End of year tests are administered in Years 2,3,4,5 and 6 (see below). Expected level for a year 2 pupils at the end of the year will be a 2b. The expected level for the end of year 6 is a 4b. INCLUSION Our schools reading policy is for all pupils and the expectation is that the principles of inclusion apply, although special circumstances may arise whereby an alternative approach is designed to support individual children to make progress. Progression in reading is monitored every half term. If children are deemed to not be making the required progress then additional intervention strategies are used to support them. These are discussed at a Leadership level during Pupil Progress Meetings, and when necessary, with the SENCO. Pupil premium children are also considered for extra support. They can include: Targeting a child for daily reading Acceleread/Accelewrite a computer-based programme designed to support self-checking skills, spelling patterns and punctuation. Toe-by-toe a daily small steps programme focusing on spelling patterns. Impact Comprehension A small group programme to support reading comprehension skills. Stile Reading comprehension and self-checking FFT Wave 3 a 1:1 programme taught for 20 minutes four or five times per week designed to support progress in both reading and writing. Details of any extra provision will be included on the child s Individual Education Plan. EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES Reading material from every culture and tradition, locally, nationwide and from across the world is encouraged. Teachers make efforts to ensure children experience stories from many backgrounds. Boys and girls will have access to all texts. Children will not be steered to books of a particular gender bias. On screen texts will be accessible to all pupils. Some dual language texts are used as part of the reading diet of all members of the class. HOMEWORK and THE ROLE OF PARENTS Children are made readers on the laps of their parents Emily Buchwald
It is the expectation that every child reads at home every day. In the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 this could be to a parent, grandparent or older sibling. In Key Stage 2 it is expected that reading will become more independent, although many families still enjoy hearing their children read until Year 6. Parents have an induction meeting when children start in Reception to outline the school s approach to teaching reading and our expectations. Leaflets are provided to give practical support to parents for supporting reading at home. Home-school records (the blue diaries) are maintained by school to record individual and guided reading. Parents are also asked to write in these books as a record of reading at home. Reading books are sent home with every child from Nursery/Reception to Year 6. Parent volunteers are sometimes used to hear readers across the school either individually or as part of the weekly Reading Café. ENCOURAGING READING Reading Corner All classrooms have book areas with a range of fiction and non-fiction titles, supplemented by books from the school library and loan collections from the Schools Library Service. Classroom displays of books are hanged at regular intervals throughout the year to tie in with topic work. The Reading Tree A reading incentive scheme is used to encourage regular reading. Each class has a reading tree prominently displayed. If a child reads three times in a week at home they take one step up the ladder. A child reading six times a week will take two steps up the ladder and a child reading everyday (as validated by a parent/carer in the home-school book) will move three steps up the ladder. Each time a child reaches the top of the ladder a special, laminated certificate is given in Sharing Assembly. The Reading Cafe A weekly reading café is held every Friday afternoon in which groups are parents are invited to come into school to hear readers. These supportive
sessions are often preceded with a mini-tutorial by a teacher to share a particular reading skill. Book Talk Teachers encourage reading through book talk introducing a favourite book, reading a section and talking about their choice. Teachers then encourage children to do the same. Children in Key Stage 2 are also encouraged to write a review of a favourite book they have finished. These are displayed in book areas. Paired Reading Children sometimes work in pairs, either within a class with a shared text, or sometimes with children from another class. The emphasis of these sessions is on reading for enjoyment. Special Events From time to time, special reading events will take place to promote a love of reading. In the past these have tied in with World Book Day or other national events and have included turning the school into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the day. The school will continue to promote these types of events to generate an excitement for reading. Roleplay/Drama Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 have a role play area where print material is available to support children s learning through play. Class teachers in other year groups must decide whether a role play area is suitable for the ability/maturity of their pupils, or its relevance to the topic. Roleplay areas contain: A title, and prominently displayed topic words Captions and questions Printed material appropriate to the theme Opportunities for the children to write linked to the theme (eg: prescriptions at the doctor s) SATS Children in Years 2 and 6 will take the SATs reading paper. These are national tests and the results are collected by the government. The results of these tests are returned to school by the end of the school year and they are then given both to parents and to the child s secondary school. In Year 6 children are given additional support in the form of booster sessions and reading comprehension homework to help prepare for these tests.
In Years 3,4 and 5 children will take an end of year reading comprehension test. These are conducted in a low-key, low-pressure way. The results of these tests are used by teachers to monitor progress and direct the teaching focuses for reading in the following year. All SATs papers are analysed by teachers using the evaluation grids in order to identify strengths and areas of development for the cohort as a whole. These should be submitted to the Subject Leader. YEAR 1 PHONICS SCREENING TEST During the Summer Term of Year 1, children will take the Phonics Screening Test. This is a national requirement. The children are asked to read a selection of real and made up words, all of which can be read using their phonics knowledge. These tests will also be administered in a low-key, low pressure way. If children do not pass the test they will be required to take it in the following year. LIBRARY A library is maintained in each school. The books in the libraries have been catalogued by the School Library Service. Teachers make use of this resource when planning topics and select texts to support their teaching. Additionally, children have access to the library in order to help their research. ROLE OF THE ENGLISH SUBJECT LEADER The English subject leader should: Ensure assessment data provided by teachers is timely and monitor the data to identify strengths and areas of development for cohorts and specific groups within each cohorts. This information should be used to inform target setting (which is linked to Performance Management) and to inform Professional Development opportunities. Provide guidance and help for staff in the areas of planning, preparation, delivery, assessment and record keeping. Provide INSET for identified staff needs, either as a whole staff, in small groups or individually. Keep the leadership team informed of curriculum needs and developments. Monitor and review the curriculum, teaching strategies, policies, planning and documentation. Confer with children and talk to them about their reading habits. Provide resources for teaching.
POLICY MONITORING This policy should be reviewed and revised on a yearly cycle by the Subject Leader, teaching staff and Governors