Reading

We are passionate about reading – our staff are enthusiastic readers, with a wealth of knowledge of great stories. Our teaching of reading is high-quality. Children are taught phonics daily and directly from the start of school. In the Autumn and Spring Terms our Nursery children follow ‘Letters and Sounds’ and RWI begins in the Summer Term. In Foundation Stage and Year 1 we teach using RWI (Read, Write Inc). Children are assessed every 6-8 weeks and groups are subsequently changed as the children make progress. RWI continues into Y2 for those children who do not pass the Y1 Phonics Screening Check, and those children additionally receive 1-to-1 support. RWI is also used in KS2 for those that need it, during reading sessions or 1-1/small group ‘quick fix’ targets. Please see the separate section on Phonics for more detail.

We have a book-banded Reading Scheme, created with texts from a range of publishers, the sequence of which shows a cumulative progression in phonics knowledge, matched closely to phonics lessons. Reading books are chosen to match the sounds that children know. Children receiving RWI in KS1 also take home a copy of their RWI reading book (Show off book) from lessons that week and a linked text (Book bag book), giving them the invaluable opportunity to reread familiar books. There are further opportunities to reread familiar books in class.

All children throughout school are heard to read at least once a fortnight or more, as and when appropriate. Reading Evidence Folders are used to record and build up a picture of each child’s reading every time they read to an adult. For those children in KS1 and KS2 needing more focused support with word reading, comprehension and fluency, we provide 1-to-1 and group interventions as appropriate.

Once children reach Silver on the Reading Scheme, they become ‘free readers’.

Whole Class reading:  From Year 2 to Year 6 our children follow the ‘Whole Class Reading’ model, whereby all children have the opportunity to study and discuss the same texts. These quality texts are carefully chosen in order to meet the academic needs of each year group.   In order to support the children’s understanding of these quality texts, the children will read a variety of fiction and non-fiction extracts. Children are encouraged to build reading fluency through choral reading, echo reading, close reading and paired reading. 

We have a wonderful Library which is the heart of the school.  Classes have regular visits to the library across the school. The Reading Ambassadors support its running. We subscribe to Coventry Schools Library Service, which is an invaluable resource in providing us with ever-changing, high-quality texts for our library, for units of work across the curriculum and for classroom reading. Emphasis is based on understanding and unpicking vocabulary, particularly tier2, whilst reading. Children are provided with a range of strategies to unpick vocabulary, which they can then apply across the curriculum. Children are encouraged to talk through a text - book talk - and teachers will model and discuss with children how to answer questions to apply this learning and to allow children opportunities to apply skills across all the reading domains (Vocab, inference, prediction, evaluating, retrieval, summarising). 

Marvellous Mondays: We relaunched our Marvellous Monday sessions in Autumn 2023 which allows children to stay behind after school on a Monday to enjoy free time in our library and share their love of reading. 

It is a very clear expectation in school that children should read regularly at home, and to that end we provide Home Diaries for children to record their reading, and for parents to write in. These are checked and commented in by teachers weekly. The Diaries include a host of useful information about reading for parents and children.

 Please click below to see the teaching sequence for reading lessons.