Reading

Reading Intent

Reading is at the heart of everything we do at Christ Church (Erith) CofE Primary School. We aim to uphold an ‘Every Child a Reader ‘ ethos, enabling children to enter secondary education and beyond equipped with the skills to succeed and reach their full potential. The aim is to ensure that all pupils can read fluently and confidently in any subject by the end of their primary education. Therefore, the teaching of reading is a central focus and a key driver within our English and broader curriculum. We intend to build a positive reading culture that produces enthusiastic readers with a genuine love of reading through the reading curriculum. Children who read for pleasure become better readers. Statistically, good readers have better educational outcomes, a better range of life chances, and better emotional and mental health than those who struggle with reading; teaching our pupils to learn to read well and enjoy reading matters and further develops the whole child. This aligns with our school ethos of ”God’s children, your children, our children creatively learning together”, and as a Rights Respecting school, we nurture pupils who have read a range of literature that reflects religion, diversity, local and global history and contemporary issues. This allows our pupils the confidence to communicate effectively in various situations, both now and in the future.

Implementation

Christ Church (Erith) CofE Primary School’s approach to teaching reading is outlined below. Our staff will demonstrate the positive, physical handling of books and other resources to teach reading and show enthusiasm when discussing books and reading. When reading aloud, adults at Christ Church will read in their ‘performance voice’, using intonation, expression, and pauses for effect, adapting their voice to reflect the author’s intent for the reader: bringing the text to life.

Summary Structure of our Holistic Approach

• Systematic Synthetic Phonics for Early Reading (EYFS and Key Stage1) is Read Write Inc (RWI)
• Provide pupils who need the most support with RWI and Fresh Start Intervention where a need has been identified with age-related expectations.
• Reading skills strategies are taught in Key Stage 2 (Years 3, 4, 5, and 6), and those pupils in Key Stage 1, who will have completed the RWI teaching cycle.
• Book Banded books provided for the Key Stage 2 with a fluency and comprehension focus (Collins Big Cat)
• Reading within English/Literacy lessons.
• Reading in the Wider Curriculum
• ‘Drop Everything and Read’ (DEAR) is used to promote pleasure in reading
• 1:1 Reading with adults
• Inviting Book Areas

Early Reading and RWI

• When children begin school (Reception), we conduct a baseline assessment as they enter EYFS.
• A homogenous phonics lesson occurs daily for Read Write Inc. sessions in EYFS and KS1.
• Throughout Early Years and Key Stage One, children are taught in small and focused groups to target their specific needs for phonics alongside children of the same ability.
• The groupings are based on Read Write Inc. assessments regularly on a per-needs basis and then continued half-termly.
• We ensure that pupils read books that match their increasing phonics knowledge to be successful and gain confidence. Children take home a book bag books, that matches their reading level.
• Key Stage 1 pupils who complete the RWI programme progressively look at short texts in Reading Skills in preparation for studying whole texts.

Reading Skills Sessions Overview

At Christ Church (Erith) Primary School, reading and writing texts are integrated to enhance engagement and immersion. Daily reading skills sessions foster oracy development, ensuring pupils gain a deeper understanding of language, positively influencing their comprehension and writing abilities. The teaching of reading skills is based on the explicit teaching of vocabulary and retrieval skills daily. Alongside teaching vocabulary and retrieval simultaneously, another reading skill is taught alongside these two.

Teaching reading across Key Stage 2 is designed to promote reading fluency, stamina, and comprehension, key components that contribute to a child’s overall literacy development. By fostering these skills, teachers enhance pupils' ability to decode and understand texts and nurture a lasting love of reading. Through the exploration of rich literature, pupils are exposed to diverse themes. These themes focus on and encourage pupils to develop empathy, address grief, and promote an understanding of environmental issues and differences within our communities, including those associated with Special Educational Needs. For example, "The Journey" in Year 5 is about refugees. The London Eye Mystery in Year 6 is about a boy with autism. The Boy in the Girls' Bathroom in Year 5 is about bullying. Beegu in Year 1 is about hope and kindness.

To further cultivate this love of reading, lessons incorporate carefully planned Book Talks and provide opportunities for pupils to hear an adult read aloud, which models fluent reading and ignites interest in various genres. Additionally, strategies such as independent reading, echo reading, and paired reading are actively promoted, enabling pupils to experience reading in diverse formats. These varied approaches develop essential reading skills and instil lifelong reading habits, enriching students' knowledge and understanding of the wider world and inspiring them to become enthusiastic, confident readers.

Reading for pleasure

At Christ Church (Erith) CofE Primary School, reading for pleasure is actively fostered through author visits, engaging poetry sessions, and the provision of diverse themed texts, including works by Shakespeare. The school encourages parental engagement with in-school events like Drop Everything and Read (DEAR). At the same time, pupils are also motivated to select their leisure reading alongside a designated fluency text, enhancing their overall reading experience.

Reading Spine Books

Based on our school context, our book spine has been specifically selected to engage all children. The texts are updated to reflect diversity and extend cultural capital for our pupils. Children are taught to develop the following skills:

• To use phonics as the primary strategy for reading.
• To read a wide range of fiction, poetry and non-fiction material.
• To read aloud fluently and with expression.
• To read for meaning.
• To recognise vocabulary, grammar, and literary devices in texts that can be used effectively in writing.
• To read a text critically and know how to improve it.
• To read with comprehension, showing understanding of how texts make sense and communicate with the reader.
• To read with awareness of the author’s intentions and purpose.

Class Book Areas, Library & Virtual Libraries

In addition to their reading scheme books, pupils are encouraged to use their class book area and our school library to take home a pleasure for reading books. This is to promote pupils’ more comprehensive reading. Pupils in KS1 also have access to Oxford's virtual library, which provides them with a range of reading materials and an opportunity for pupil voice (recommended reads).

Pupils Who Need the Most Support

Any children in lower Key Stage 2 who cannot decode sounds or struggle to read fluently will be targeted for the appropriate phonics sessions based on the identified gaps in their grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) knowledge.

• Children in Years 5 and 6 who need to improve their fluency will participate in Fresh Start sessions each day.
• Individual Records for pupils who need the most support will be completed, with tracked progress and notes on the next steps to address their individual knowledge gaps of the GPCs.

Pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

• In the first instance, pupils with SEND needs will be taught using the RWI programme, and where necessary, adaptive teaching will be applied to suit the child's specific needs.
• Consider each pupil’s strengths, challenges, knowledge, understanding, and needs profile.
• The learning will be carefully structured in small and cumulative steps.
• Use instructional routines that are familiar to SEND pupils
• Daily, with well-paced, well-planned lessons that are engaging and motivating
• Some pupils may need additional strategies and adaptive teaching to be employed, such as for those who have physical disabilities, pre- or non-verbal, or have both fine motor difficulties.