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Reading

Intent

At South Camberley Primary School, reading is our highest priority. We believe that learning to read and communicate effectively underpins all learning. We aim for every child to be equipped with strategies to read independently and fluently. The teaching of reading has a clear structure that puts children at the heart of the lesson and supports accelerated progress of the lowest 20% 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. 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 the local community and promote a love of reading.

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.
  • All reading is recorded and tracked electronically through BoomReader – pupils reading independently, reading to adults at school and reading with parents/carers at home.
  • 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.
  • Our reading 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.

Additional Whole school initiatives

PHONICS PLAY

Fun and engaging games to support children to decode CVC words.

LITTLE GEMS AND BARRINGTON STOKES

High interest dyslexia friendly texts to promote a love of reading for all children.

MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS

To promote a love of reading and ensure that children have access to a range of different genres.

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS

A reading initiative to promote a love of reading across the school.

RECOMMENDED READS

There are extensive lists of high-quality, age-appropriate texts for all children. The list also provides a link to a recent review.

VIRTUAL LIBRARY

This provides audiobooks of high-quality texts to promote a love of reading for pleasure and to ensure that high-quality texts are accessible to all children.

AUTHOR WORKSHOPS

Author visits to promote a love of reading for pleasure.

CPD

Subject leaders deliver training to all new staff and ECTs to ensure a consistent approach is adopted and that all teachers are expert models of reading. Teachers have opportunities to observe more experienced members of staff teaching reading.

*NOTE: Targeted children = Children whose reading is not at expected standard and pupil premium.

100% of pupils surveyed in March 2022 stated that they like the books we read at school and 94% enjoy their Teaching Reading lessons. 88% love to read to themselves.