Our new library mural was designed by LRPS children who discussed their favourite texts to read......
Reading
(You can read the full Reading Policy here)
Vision
Central to learning is creating a life-long love of reading and books. At Long Ridings Primary School, it is our belief that every child should be able to read for pleasure and to a high standard. We want to develop our children’s imagination to open up a treasure house of wonder and joy for curious young minds. We also believe that every child should be given the tools to develop into an enthusiastic and confident reader both at home and at school. Reading improves language and vocabulary, inspires imagination and gives everyone the opportunity to develop and foster new interests.
Intent
Learning to read is the foundation for all educational success. We aim to ensure that all our children not only have the opportunity to learn to read but that they also become lifelong readers for purpose and pleasure. They will become people who not only can read, but do read from choice, a wide variety of texts on paper and on screen. At Long Ridings, Reading is a priority so that our pupils can access the full curriculum. Reading is taught not only in specific Reading lessons but across the wider curriculum too. We provide language-rich classroom environments and a curriculum where children are exposed to, and actively engage with, high quality language in varying forms in a meaningful, deliberate and engaging way. Language acquisition and its use is at the core of all the reading, writing and communication we expect of our pupils. At Long Ridings, we aim to develop a love of Reading in all our children. This is supported by the teaching of phonics for decoding from Nursery onwards, along with other reading skills such as inference, retrieval, predicting, summarising and understanding the author’s use of language for developing comprehension of the text. We provide children with the reading skills they need to read a broad range of texts. By the end of Key Stage One, our children will already be successful, fluent decoders through the delivery of consistent high quality, systematic synthetic phonics teaching from EYFS until the end of KS1 (following the Little Wandle programme). They understand that they use their phonics knowledge as the first tool when tackling new words in reading and writing. They will also have a growing understanding of text meaning which will be further developed during Key Stage 2. Children will leave Long Ridings as competent readers, who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a wide range of high-quality texts across the genres, participate in discussions about books and have an established love of reading for life.
Implementation
Every child takes part in daily reading lessons, which focus on either developing their understanding of word meaning or their reading comprehension skills. Three of these sessions are led by the Ashley Booth curriculum and are based on a broad range of rich texts that offer plenty of experience of a multicultural society. The other two sessions are based around the class book that the class will be reading, these sessions will be tailored to suit the needs of the individual and class, which maximise the learning potential of all children and allows them opportunities to succeed.
As well as this, each class will read a class book at least one a half term. The class books will be read in a variety of ways from whole class reading, to individual reading, to teacher reading it. This gives children the opportunity to explore different books from a range of different authors, whom they would not normally choose. Also, each child will compete in a reading gym once a week, which is designed to increase the pupils reading stamina. Finally, each class will have a thirty-minute slot to develop their word reading, love for books or reading comprehension skills in our brand-new library.
We use Little Wandle at Long Ridings to support the systematic teaching of phonics. Children begin the Little Wandle programme in Nursery and continue across Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2). Every child from Nursery to Year 2 has a 30-minute phonics session every day. We teach discrete phonics sessions and consistently follow the principles set out in the six phases of Little Wandle. To support this programme, we use a carefully selected range of bespoke resources matched to
the individual phases. Teachers use a wide range of real objects, images, songs and games. These make phonics lessons not only impactful but also fun for our children. Teachers follow the structure of Review (previously learnt phonemes/words) Teach (new phoneme/words) Practise (new learning) and Apply (new learning) across the week focusing on Reading, Writing and Tricky Words. All phonics sessions are taught as a whole class and activities differentiated to match the various abilities within the class, including challenges for the more able pupils. Teaching assistants are used within the daily phonics sessions to support pupils in their phonics activities and in helping the teacher to assess the pupil’s phonic abilities. Children with SEN may be taught in a smaller group but access the same learning as the other children in their class. Children in need of intervention will be identified and extra sessions will be provided for them outside the daily timetabled phonics session. Children in KS2 who need further phonic intervention work will do so through targeted interventions. They will be continued to be assessed regularly to provide them with appropriate support.
Impact
The impact on our children is clear: progress, life skills and developing a love for reading. By the time children leave Long Ridings they are competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including poetry, and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader. They can also read books to enhance their knowledge and understanding of all subjects on the curriculum, and communicate their research to a wider audience.
Each pupil has a reading comprehension book, which includes all of their work on their word reading and comprehension skills. The work that is in these books is used to inform planning and assessment, identify any gaps, moderated across year groups and record their progress in their reading journey. Assessment for learning strategies are used in all reading sessions to ensure high quality teaching in all reading sessions. We have a process of monitoring to ensure standards and this includes, observations, book monitoring, performance management and learning walks to demonstrate high quality teaching.
Each term, Year Groups undertake a formative assessment, the results of which are not published, but used for future planning and to highlight any individual learning gaps. Teachers make termly judgements for each pupil against year group expectations and bring this information to Pupil Progress meetings, alongside updates on intervention groups. We report the standards for individual pupils at the end of Reception, Year 2 and Year 6 and for pupils in Year 1 who take the Phonics screening check. ORB additionally provides individual and class data on reading engagement, attainment and progress.
How to help at home
How to support your child's reading at home
Diversity in children's literature
Foundation/ EYFS recommended reads
World Book Day 2024!
Latest Reading Update
