We believe that every child can and will learn to read, and place a great deal of emphasis on early reading. Learning to read and communicate effectively underpins all learning. We aim for every child to be equipped with strategies to read independently and fluently.

Our 'teaching reading' structure supports children to make accelerated progress whilst also providing ample opportunities to challenge and extend confident readers through high-order questioning and rich class discussions. The structure of each lesson develops children's ability to understand and discuss what they have read before forming detailed and coherent written responses to questions that are supported by evidence from the text.  

Our approach to reading enrichment promotes a love of reading across the school. Children have access to a range of high-quality and diverse texts that are progressive across each year group and have been carefully selected to reflect both our local community and inspire our learners.

How We Teach Reading

• Children are read to everyday to enrich reading.  
• Every child has an individual book (picture/decodable book) to take home.  
• All EYFS & KS1 children read at least once a fortnight with an adult. All pupils in KS2 will be heard to read by an adult at least twice per half term. Targeted children in all phases will read with an adult at least twice a week.
• Class teachers select additional independent reading books to go home. These are decodable and based upon individual reading abilities.  
• Children have access to high-quality texts that they can take home from the class library.  
• Reading posters are visible across the school to promote and recommend high-quality texts.  
• There is a 'guided approach' to teaching reading in KS1 which occurs five times a week. A more 'structured' whole class teaching reading lesson is introduced at the end of KS1 and is embedded across KS2. Whole class teaching of reading in KS2 takes place four times each week.  
• The skills of 'clarifying, inference, retrieval, making links and evaluating' are taught and reinforced during lessons.
• We have developed our bespoke teaching reading structure that places responsibility on the child to facilitate reading sessions. Our reading structure promotes resilience and independent learners at every stage of development.  
• Our reading 'groupings' are carefully selected to enable accelerated progress of all learners, and our approach supports collaboration and peer assessment.  

Impact

All children are taught appropriate reading strategies to read independently with fluency. As children progress through the school, they are able to engage in rich discussions about what they are reading and demonstrate comprehension skills. Across the school, reading is a priority and children share a love of reading for pleasure.  

Key Reading Initiatives

Boom Reader

All reading is recorded and tracked electronically through our BoomReader platform. This seamless digital diary is used to log pupils reading independently, reading to adults at school, and reading with parents/carers at home so we can continually monitor and celebrate their progress.  

Battle of the Books

Battle of the Books is an exciting reading initiative that we are launching across the whole of South Camberley Primary School. Each child receives a bookmark to write their name and class on. Each bookmark has space for 20 stamps (infants) or 30 stamps (juniors).  

To receive a stamp, children must read a book from the Recommended Reading List, complete a writing task, and hand it to their teacher. Children can choose from a variety of creative tasks:

• Write a book review or a blurb
• Create a character profile or draw/annotate a character with a detailed description
• Write an alternative ending or design an alternative front cover
• Describe a setting
• Create a story map
• Write the opening chapter of a sequel to the book

These pieces of work are then made available for other children to read as recommendations. Once a child collects their 20 or 30 stamps, they will receive a special reading badge. Let the Battle of the Books commence!

Virtual Library

We have created a Virtual Library that has lots of books with links to the books being read aloud. It features books for Early Years children all the way through to Year 6 children, and it even has a Teacher's Favourites section! We hope you enjoy having a look around and finding some new books to inspire you 😇.

Curriculum Overview