At Half Acres Primary Academy, it is our intention to provide pupils with a high quality Education in reading that will develop pupils’ ability to communicate, master the core skills and develop a love of reading that will aid their articulation of thoughts, ideas and emotions effectively.
Throughout school, children are exposed to a variety of opportunities during the school day to actively read and be read to. Reading is taught specifically through Read, Write, Inc across Early Years and Key Stage One and through daily Guided Reading in Key Stage Two. Reading is a high priority within our English Curriculum where teachers will plan weekly comprehension lessons to match the reading domains for each year group. Through teachers choice of high quality texts, we intend to foster a love of reading and allow children the opportunity to identify the pleasure that can come from reading. With this, we aim to provide children with the understanding that reading presents opportunities and avenues to discover new knowledge, revisit prior knowledge and develop their understanding further about what they learn.
It is our intention that in Key Stage One pupils develop reading and problem solving skills as early and emergent readers so they become confident and independent at identifying new words on a page. This intention is also for children to use these developing skills to access and understand a wide variety of texts. By the end of Key Stage One, children will be equipped with the high quality phonics provision and comprehension skills necessary to engage with and enjoy an increasingly challenging range of books.
We intend that all pupils across Key Stage Two will build on the skills developed in Key Stage One to access and analyse challenging texts across the reading domains independently and encourage children to clarify unknown words in order to develop a strong and rich vocabulary. By the time the children leave Half Acres, we intend that pupils will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of reading for pleasure and purpose, demonstrate effective and efficient strategies for decoding difficult texts and have been exposed to a wide range of genres. We aim to inspire children to talk openly and positively about their reading experiences and identify personal preferences.
Our provision has three strands:
Quality first wave teaching is given to all Early Years and Key Stage One children through fluid groups within the Read, Write, Inc guidelines. This is accessed by all children with support from allocated members of staff for groupings. The children work on the grapheme-phoneme-correspondences matched accurately with their reading age and ability.
Staff use the Read, Write, Inc books to consolidate learning of new sounds and continue to challenge the children on an independent level within a different context. These books aid development with decoding skills and track progress in reading.
In Key Stage Two, staff use ‘Book Bands’ to track progress in reading. These text levels correspond with National Curriculum objectives and are used to develop the skills of emergent readers. Children progress through book bands and select one text at a time as their home reading books to encourage reading for pleasure. The books which children read at home are the book band below the book band they are working on in school. This is purposeful as it gives opportunity for children to practise their reading at a level they can control their skills well and it promotes reading for pleasure. This is tracked and communicated with parents through the use of a reading record.
Children from Year 2 to 6 participate in daily whole class reading sessions, which are carefully planned for progression. These reading lessons develop fluency, comprehension strategies and understanding through the teaching of specific comprehension skills at an age-appropriate level. Pupils are exposed to a range of high-quality texts that are at an age-appropriate level for every year group. To enable good comprehension, new vocabulary is taught, discussed and reviewed consistently to develop the children’s word recognition and knowledge.
We strive to ensure that our children’s attainment is in line or exceeds their individual potential when we consider the varied starting points of all our children. We measure this across book band progression, Salford Reading Tests and Pira tests as well as observations within reading and cross-curricular opportunities. We strive to ensure children will be able to access challenging texts in all areas of the curriculum of a similar standard which show good progress, whilst always considering the reading expectations for each year group. Children will make at least good progress in reading from their last point of statutory assessment or from their baseline in Nursery. We intend the impact of our reading curriculum will ensure our pupils have acquired the necessary skills in preparation for life beyond primary school and throughout their continued educational journey.
Leaders ensure that the National Curriculum objectives are taught effectively so that children can demonstrate a deeper understanding of the author’s messages and are confident to discuss their ideas with others and respond in written form to demonstrate their understanding. Pupil performance is tracked though running records, success criteria, termly summative assessments and lesson observations. By the end of Key Stage Two, children will have developed pace, fluency and comprehension skills and will be aware of, and have accessed, a wide range of books.
