English

Reading

Intent

At Fir Bank, we want our children to be inspired and excited to read. We aim to develop a love of reading that extends way beyond school. We engage children with reading as soon as they start their learning journey at Fir Bank, helping them to grow in to confident and fluent readers. We aim to offer exposure to a wide variety of texts and genres and to expand vocabulary. Through reading, we want to help children’s imaginations grow and to introduce them to a literary world that you can get lost in.

Implementation

• We have a thorough phonics programme in place to ensure that our children have all of the essential phonics knowledge they will need to become fluent readers.

• Children are assessed half termly and interventions are put in place immediately for any children not on track.
• All of our children in Foundation Stage read regularly to an adult.
• Differentiated guided reading takes place throughout Year 1, Autumn term of Year 2 and continues for any children that are not ready for whole class comprehension. 
• From Spring 1 of Year 2 to Year 6, children receive whole class comprehension lessons. These lessons expose children to a variety of genres, explicitly teach children the content domains and have a strong focus on vocabulary.
• We have a well-stocked Reading Scheme from Foundation Stage to Year 6.
• We have invested in a school library and high-quality texts to encourage a love of reading. Children choose a reading for pleasure book to go alongside their book from the school reading scheme.
• From Year 1, we use Reading Ninja to encourage children to read at home. If children read 8 times a week they receive a privilege and there is one prize per class each half term for the child that has put in the most effort with home reading.
• We encourage our children to take part in the local Oldham Library Reading Challenge and children are awarded for this in school if they are successful.
• Every child in school reads to an adult at least once a half term.
• The lowest 20% in each class reads regularly to an adult in school.
• Year 1 to Year 6 are assessed formally each term using PIRA or past SATs papers.

Impact

We believe that reading is the key to all learning so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of statutory assessments. Children have the chance 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 phonics and comprehension, our aim is for our children to become fluent and confident readers who can read for sustained periods. They develop curiosity through questioning and predicting what will come next. They will infer what the author is suggesting and they will be able to summarise and paraphrase texts they have read. Children will have good comprehension skills and have a wide understanding of prior knowledge of the topic due to a solid grasp of vocabulary. They are not frightened to challenge themselves. Our pupils are ready for the next stage of their reading journey. 

Learning Journey Quality Texts