Reading

What reading looks like at Eastwood Village Primary School

Intent

Rational

Our aim at Eastwood Village primary school is to teach every child to become confident readers and be enthused about reading. Children in our community have travelled from countries around the world and as a school we are dedicated in enabling our children to be enthused, engaged and successful lifelong readers, in hope that they foster the love of reading and further develop skills to unlock doors for their future.

Implementation

How do we prioritise reading as a school?

Reading underpins all that we do here at Eastwood Village Primary. From the first week in Foundation Stage we begin the process of enabling children to become early readers by accessing our implemented phonics program, Read write Inc, a highly rigorous program which carefully matches the new curriculum. At home, children are encouraged to read with their parents, carers and siblings by providing them with tools to become competent readers. These include; sound cards, decodable words and books that match each individual child’s development. In addition to this, daily reads take place across the schools with teachers, teaching assistants, student reading ambassadors and volunteers on a one to one basis. This gives children in our school that great start in reading. This support continues as they grow into transitional and self- extended readers throughout their time at Eastwood Village and it is a part of the day that the children cherish.

Impact

Our high quality, consistent approach to the teaching of systematic phonics curriculum, enables children to become confident, fluent, readers and increasingly accurate spellers which in turn, unlocks many doors for many children in this community allowing them continue to flourish in later life, providing prospects and contributions as global citizens.

‘Here at the heart of our community’

At Eastwood Village, the children have time to listen to their class teacher, or a guest reader, read high quality texts to them in class on a daily basis. This means that during the academic year, children get to listen and experience a variety of high-quality texts being read to them in a manner that models good habits and techniques.

We prioritise opportunities that supports reading for pleasure during our daily time tables. Reading for pleasure means any reading that is primarily for enjoyment. This includes: books, magazines, comics, poems, picture books, newspapers as well as fiction novels. Research has shown that reading for pleasure can result in increased empathy, improved relationships with others, improved wellbeing and an increased insight into the view and opinions of others. As a school, we know that young children who enjoy reading independently will have had a door opened to new discoveries and wider interests as well as to new knowledge, creativity and confidence. We believe Reading for Pleasure is of the utmost importance and it is something that we actively and continuously promote in many different ways throughout our school. We have lots of areas in class rooms and around school where children are able to choose books and take them home. During our daily breakfast club, families are welcome to access the library and enjoy a story or two. Children at Eastwood love sharing stories that they have read in class with their families, you see their faces light up with enjoyment in these special moments. We encourage older siblings to read with their younger family members at ‘love of reading’ sessions. We also hold many Reading events to promote the importance of authors and their influences. These include event days which the children thoroughly enjoy , for example the famous World book day!

Progress of Early reading

Here at Eastwood Village, we are committed to teaching children how to read, and enjoy reading, from an early age (Foundation or as soon as possible) through systematic synthetic phonics using Ruth Miskin’s Read, Write, Inc programme.

Read Write Inc is a Literacy program for children learning to read. Children learn the 44 common sounds in English language in a sequence through 3 sets of sounds that enables them to learn how to blend, read and spell. All staff that deliver the RWI programme have been trained; which has given them skills, knowledge and confidence to plan, deliver and assess phonics to a high standard. Staff are very clear on progress expectations and which sounds children are expected to know by each half term. They teach the program with fidelity ensuring that all children make progress from their entry points using the Read right Inc programme and tools.

Assessment

Across our school, the children who access RWI are assessed formally each half term by the reading lead and teachers. These children are then placed in specific focus groups which means children’s individual needs are being met along side children of the same ability. Robust assessments ensure that children are reading the correct book that carefully matches their growing phonological knowledge and awareness. Equally, this ensures children are issued with the correct home reading book for them to enjoy at home allowing them to consolidate their learning, build fluency and gain confidence. Thus fostering the love of reading

Extra support in early reading

At Eastwood Village, we find it extremely important that all children should make progress in reading. Right from the start, whether that is starting in Foundation Stage or starting our school at different points of the school year, children are assessed using the RWI program. This enables us to not only group children into ability groups so they are accessing the right support, but we can identify children who need extra 1:1 interventions and provide teachers with the correct information to support the children.

Watch this video to see an example of a 1 to1 tuition session that we provide.

As mentioned, alongside our Phonic lessons, we read decodable books that match our programme and follow the progress that children are making. These books enhance fluency as they are re-read throughout the week.

To further build skills, we also have daily individual reading practice with book bag books that are closely matched to our RWI scheme. These are read in school with teachers, teaching assistants, volunteers and reading ambassadors. In addition, these books are sent home daily by the reading teachers and home reading is encouraged as often as possible to promote the importance of reading, progress and enjoyment.

Our expert staff

At Eastwood Village, our staff are excellent at teaching our Phonics program.

As a school, we have yearly whole group training with a RWI provider or our very own Reading lead. We work closely with the local English Hub which supports our reading lead and provides the skills that they need to provide effective training, practice sessions and coaching as often as the teachers need that. This enhances teaching skills and expertise more and more.

Teaching staff and the Reading leader have discussions about supporting pupils further and where we can enhance progress through lessons and interventions. In our school, not only are KS1 expert phonic teachers, phonics is reflected all the way to Upper KS2 with highly trained support staff and Phonic tools accessible around the classroom. Lower KS2 still kick- start their reading lessons with a quick sound recap and fluency practice to further imbed those early reading skills.

Reading in the EYFS

To underpin the natural curiosity of story-telling and love of reading, we promote aspects of reading right from the beginning of September. As an addition to our phonic lessons, we provide a wealth of rich reading skills and opportunities. These include; additional ‘fred talk’ (oral sound blending) sessions to help with those decoding and blending skills, environmental walks to help distinguish sounds and instrumental and body sounds to develop awareness of rhyme and alliteration. The learning environment across the EYFS indoor and out, create rich learning experiences that provide ample opportunities to embed sound recognition further. These are child and adult led.

In foundation, we install the love of reading by reading high quality texts just like KS1 and KS2. These texts may include a broad range of vocabulary, female role models, aspirational career opportunities and much more. Alongside our texts, we provide opportunities for children to retell stories during provision, use story language and sequence to develop their own imagination and own ideas of story-telling.

All classes across KS1 and KS2 have dedicated high quality texts that are shared with the class and are explored during English and Reading lessons.

Following on from RWI, as children become competent, independent readers. We use a shared reading approach to develop further reading skills that involve Decoding, Explanation, Retrieving, Interpreting and Choice (DERIC).

This is a short teacher led lesson where children have access to thus high-quality texts and work on a particular reading skill. The adult would read the text aloud, have a discussion then children would read in partners and respond. In addition, KS2 children have the opportunity to develop there spoken language by reading out loud and having debates.

As a school, we find that shared reading has a large impact on English writing skills as they are developing oracy, grammar, punctuation and being exposed to language rich texts which improves vocabulary. In addition to this, we include Echo reading opportunities to further develop expression and fluency.