St Mary’s is a school that loves books. We have access to a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books, which are used across the curriculum. Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and our classroom environments from our Early Years up to Year Six, have a wealth of reading material. We have transformed our shared reading spaces and we are lucky enough to have a wonderful library and reading nook that all children have access to.
Our teachers love read to our children and we recognise the importance of the teacher as an inspirational role model.
Teaching a child to read is the greatest gift that we can give a child in our school. Because of this, we see it as a primary purpose of our curriculum. From Early Years to Year 6, we ensure that our children not only learn the skills and knowledge to enable them to read, but also to develop positive life-long dispositions and attitudes towards reading – that will take our children through secondary school and into adulthood.
We endeavour to instil a love of reading, which will last our children a lifetime, allow them to progress in their learning journey and empower them to become confident learners, encourage independence, build self-esteem and acquire a love of learning. The ambitious Reading Curriculum that we offer our children allows them to obtain skills and confidence that will enable them to continue to reach their potential once they leave St Mary’s.
The Reading Curriculum at St Mary’s is taught using a robust, sequenced, language and vocabulary rich, multi-sensory resourced approach. Within this, our Reading Curriculum is built upon quality texts alongside the explicit teaching tasks that develop reading skills which focus on the reading domains within Key Stage 1 and 2. In addition to this, our reading curriculum develops opportunities to develop reading stamina, promote oracy skills, reading aloud and performing, to become conscientious and confident communicators and acquire high level vocabulary.
EYFS and Key Stage One children receive phonics lessons following the Ruth Miskin Programme RWi, until they have been assessed as having completed the phonics programme and have demonstrated the fluency required to venture beyond Grey Storybooks. Once secure, children will access whole class reading comprehension during this time, following our Core Literature Spine. Accessing reading comprehension from Year 2, enables all children to be exposed to structured comprehension, providing the opportunity to develop and master the skills required to understand a text. It also allows all children to access the interleaving that takes place between subjects within the wider curriculum and provides all children the opportunity to develop key reading (word reading and comprehension) and writing skills.
Reading is taught through the explicit delivery of reading domains from Year 2 onwards, with Key Stage Two children accessing whole-class reading. Reading domains are regularly revisited to secure the skill of comprehension and the tools we use to connect a text to full understanding. This is delivered in small steps and sequenced in books using question structure strips, which reduce cognitive load for the child and act as a prompt to remind them of the journey they have been on throughout the lesson. The structure of the lesson consists of exposure to challenging vocabulary; a mixture of reading techniques; explanation; worked example; attempt; apply and challenge.
Reading enables children access to expert authors to enable them to make connections between the authorial style and skill they see as a reader, to how they can develop themselves as writers. As a school we challenge children to first read as a reader, then read as a writer, considering the impact of language choice and the way an author creates a book that impacts on the reader. This enables children to connect all areas of their learning and feel confident in their skills as a reader.
Reading for Pleasure
At St Mary’s, we recognise that the relationship between ‘the will’ to read and ‘the skill’ to read is reciprocal so alongside working hard to develop children’s reading proficiency Reading for pleasure is a whole-school priority and we are committed to building a whole school community that loves reading. At St Mary’s we have developed a brilliant reading ethos in several ways:
We have developed a bespoke ‘Reading Offer’ which enables all children to reach their full reading potential.
- All classes are exposed to a daily class reader, for pleasure, to excite and engage the children, and to expose them to new and varied vocabulary. All books shared with children are age appropriate and matched to the level of the class/individual.
- Each child and their family has access to our outstanding and stimulating school libraries where children have access to new, exciting, and high-quality texts.
- Children read with their ‘Reading Buddies’ weekly.
- For reading to be purposeful and fun, children need to see their teachers/ adults enjoying reading too. Therefore, staff display what books they are reading to encourage Book talk around school.
-
- School Council purchasing books
As a school we are dedicated to providing children with new and exciting texts. Therefore we regularly hold fundraising events such as Book fairs and second hand book swaps, not only are these events fun, but they are constantly promoting the profile of reading in our school community. Our school council recently (March 24) fundraised to purchase books to create “Book Cases” that travel. around classes. They visited Kemps, our local book store to purchase the books their class would like to read.
We regularly hold whole school reading events such as World Book Day and National Poetry Day. Furthermore, we hold a themed Drop Everything and Read event each half term.
Impact
As a result of our teaching of reading at St Mary’s you will see:
Children who have read and experienced a range of quality literature and vocabulary that is displayed by confident, fluent and articulate readers and speakers. Children display assured comprehension which draws from linguistic knowledge (in particular of vocabulary and grammar) and on knowledge of the world. Comprehension skills of our children, which they develop through their experience of high-quality discussions, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction. Through discussion and feedback, our children can talk enthusiastically about a range of books, texts, information, authors and vocabulary and speak about how and why they love reading. You will see high quality writing in all aspects of their learning due to the texts, vocabulary and grammar the children have been exposed to. The children at St. Mary’s are able to make links to what they have read and apply it to the world around them and feed a love of knowledge acquisition.
Enrichment
- Within our school, we celebrate each child. Children who possess an in-depth and mature understanding of literature are part of a Reading Club in Key Stage 2. In this club, children read a series of classic texts and discuss themes, author intent and give opinions.
- Built upon the oracy and communication skills developed in the reading lessons, children have access to Debate Club where children are given a topic to debate, research credible information and debate using oracy skills they acquire in reading lessons
- We also work alongside our local library and every child at St Mary’s are given the opportunity to join the local library.
- Visit the local book shop to discuss new releases and favourite authors.
