Reading

Please see the RWI Write Inc Information for Parents/Carers page to find out how to best support your child at home. 

At Shay Lane Primary 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. We do this through a reading list which includes a wide range of carefully selected age-appropriate texts; these include different types of literature, drawn from a range of cultures and literacy heritage.

We recognise the importance of taking a consistent approach to the teaching of reading, beginning with our phonics programme. We are highly ambitious for all our children and do all we can to ensure children ‘keep up’ and succeed.

At Shay Lane Primary School, our aim is to ensure all pupils leave primary education being fluent, confident and expressive readers. We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves and to persevere. 

* Reading Policy*

Early Reading

At Shay Lane Primary School, we robustly follow a systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) programme called Read, Write Inc as an approach to teaching early reading. This is followed until Year 2 and is taught progressively and with fidelity.

In Nursery, pupils’ early reading journey will begin through engaging in a vocabulary rich environment. Speaking and Listening skills will develop through interactions in role-play areas, as well as in child-led discussions and planned sessions where pupils will observe and take part in talk and sentence building exercises. Pupils will develop a love of reading through a variety of exciting and engaging core texts and an environment that enables pupils to retell stories and express their opinion towards the different books they hear. We celebrate our love of songs and rhymes by providing opportunities to perform our ‘Rhyme of the Week’ in many areas of our provision. Gradually, Nursery will begin to orally blend sounds and will move onto learning initial sounds through the Read, Write Inc programme, linking sounds to their letter shape in the final term.

Gradually and in conjunction with pupils’ progressing phonic ability, children will develop through the Read, Write Inc stages throughout Reception and KS1, becoming confident and skilled readers.

The stages of the Read, Write Inc programme are set out into colours, consisting of a variety of books in each coloured stage. Pupils accessing the Read, Write Inc phonic approach will read a book on a particular stage, closely matched to their phonic ability. Our children are taught each day in small, teacher-led groups to learn sounds and reading skills according to their ability which is assessed each half term. To ensure pupils retain their knowledge of phonemes and graphemes, they spend 45 minutes to 1 hour daily on this SSP programme, as well as revisiting sounds through an additional quick-fire ‘Speed Sounds’ session daily. By the time pupils reach Year Two, they should be confident decoders. Year Two will continue their phonic journey to becoming fluent and skilled readers.

Pupils who are not keeping up with their peers undertake daily Fast Track Tutoring intervention support, and where pupils have not yet mastered the English alphabetic code in Key Stage 2, they access the Fresh Start Programme to ensure they catch up quickly.

RWI Expectations of Progress Document

A RWI Expectation of Progress Document is available in school.

Continuing Our Reading Journey

Once children have completed the RWI programme successfully, children select age-appropriate, inviting texts to read, in our KS1 and KS2 library, rather than moving through schemed book-banded books.  Our library has a vast selection of books for our pupils to choose from and is frequently updated with new inviting options as guided by our school councillors.  Our books offer a wide range of exciting genres and reflect modern British society. Year 6 have a "Young Adult" library that they are able to access with permission slips where they can utilise their reading their abilities to explore more mature reading content with guidance. 

Pupils are exposed to whole class shared reading sessions. They follow a five-day approach to reading activities. Sessions are interactive and teachers facilitate speaking and listening opportunities, with children working hard individually. Sessions aim to enhance skills in reading fluency, reading aloud - performance reading and reading comprehension. At least one session is dedicated to listening to children read throughout every year group.  Every child is heard and no one is left behind. 

Shared Reading

Following the completion of RWI, pupils will begin formal shared reading sessions.  Teachers will provide fluency opportunities using the Reading Theatre as recommended by EEF research to build accuracy, automaticity and prosody.

Most learning sequences will begin with explicit vocabulary, taught in context, teaching providing the pupils with required understanding to achieve comprehension and reading fluency. High quality modelling and scaffolding is implemented at the beginning of the week, leading to greater independence towards the end. Children will have opportunities to develop their reading fluency within reading lessons (using the ‘Reader’s Theatre’ approach) before engaging in class discussions using a range of paired and group work to develop their reading comprehension guided by the 
teacher and specific questioning. Teachers model how to refine answers to a high standard. 

Opportunities to apply understanding are recorded in a variety of ways such as written comprehensions, book and text reviews as well as extended pieces of writing. Sometimes children will write nothing at all; they will engage in enriched discussion. Due to our thematic approach to the curriculum, many aspects of this learning can be developed over a range of subjects. 

As we adopt a whole class shared reading approach, support is provided to pupils of all abilities; this can take the form of adult support, explicit teaching of vocabulary, modelled answers and effective use of different question types ensuring that all learners can achieve success. Although all pupils will engage with the text drivers and participate in discussions, some SEND pupils will continue to focus on decoding to ensure they leave school as free readers, if needed.

Reading Whole School Progression Document

Further information can be found in our Whole School Progression Document: 

EYFS and Key Stage One Progression Document

Key Stage Two Progression Document

Reading in Action!

Meet Our Reading Ambassadors 

'Our library rules and suggestions:'

Reading Whole School Parent Meeting

RWI Reception Parent Meeting

Pupil  Voice

Reception 

"I love stories and my teacher reading to me. I ask my teachers to read again and again and again!"

Year 1 
"I like it when Year 4 come down and read to us!"

Year 2

"Miss Shah reads to us lots! Storytime is the best part of the day."

Year 3
"I can't take my face out of a book!"

Year 4

"Books can be fun, especially mysteries."

Year 5

"I really reading and I like it even more now I can choose any book I want. My favourite book is Harry Potter!"

Year 6

"I really enjoy story time - it's the best part of day! I couldn't believe how mean Granny was." 

Reading in the Early Years Foundation Stage

In the EYFS, books and stories are the cornerstone of our curriculum. We share a love for reading, which the children carry with them throughout their journey in school. Our passionate educators in the early years promote their favourite texts, authors and literature, and this enthusiasm isnpires our young readers to explore the magical world of stories, for themselves. 

Our learning environment is book-rich and Reception share reading books with one another, and with adults, throughout the school day. We retell old favourites, share new 'top picks' and share our thoughts and opinions about the books we read. 

School Library

Our school libraries are filled with a range of exciting books with something for everyone.  As a school that prides itself on inclusion, we ensure that all our pupils can find themselves in stories as well as finding out about their interests.  Our libraries also extend into a selection of books kept in the quiet area on the playground as well as smaller libraries inside each classroom.  Subject specific displays may also offer a text selection such as in our ICT Suite where there is a range of books promoting e-safety. 

Classroom Reading Areas

In every classroom, there is a small selection of books that are changed frequently.  Books on display allow pupils to read non-fiction and fiction based around their current learning theme however, other books, as highlighted by our pupil voice, are also availble in class.  Everyweek, pupils have a book club session where they have the freedom to explore available literature (from classrooms and libraries) and share their favourites with their peers.

Our 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 children have become fluent and confident readers at the end of KS1. Our persistent phonics screening results and end of KS1 data show pupils are attaining national average in reading.

As a Year 6 reader, our pupils transition into secondary education being fluent, confident and able readers, who 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.

The impact of our reading curriculum is observed through the lives of pupils and not just statutory assessments.

In addition to this:

• Parents and carers have a good understanding of how they can support reading at home, and contribute regularly to home-school records.
• Staff are trained to the highest degree in the teaching of our systematic synthetic phonics programme.
• There are no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (e.g., disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged).

Useful Links