Reading Curriculum Statement

At Harefield Primary School, reading is highly valued as a key life skill as well as supporting academic success. Our intention is to provide a high-quality reading curriculum to inspire and enable our pupils to become lifelong readers and improve their life chances.

We use a synthetic phonics programme called ‘Little Wandle”, which is validated by the Department for Education, to teach our pupils to learn to read. Pupils have daily phonics sessions where they take part in speaking, listening, and spelling activities that are matched to their developing needs.

Pupils work through the phonics phases to learn and develop their phonetic knowledge (the relationship between speech sounds (phonemes) and their letter symbols (graphemes).

Alongside this, we provide parent workshops to support phonics and reading at home.

Texts used during guided reading and texts that are sent home are closely matched to children’s phonics ability.

We also promote reading for pleasure through: -

• Pupils also regularly visit our school library “Leveret Library”, where they have access to a wide range of fiction and nonfiction books, as well as books published by our pupils. Each week, children can choose a book to take home. Our pupil librarians make sure the library is well organised and tidy for all of the pupils.
• Each classroom also has a wide selection of books, some linked to specific curriculum concepts, to encourage a love of reading and independent learning.
• Children are also read to each day by their class teacher. This could be a book that the teacher recommends to the class or a recommendation from a child.  
• Annual World Book Day Celebrations

We have also introduced a reading programme to: -

• Bridge the gap between phonics and comprehension teaching.
• Increase focus on and improvement of children’s fluency.
• Improve children’s vocabulary knowledge.
• Improve engagement in reading beyond classroom.

How we teach reading: -  

We teach 4 x 30 minutes sessions a week, focussing on the following: -

Fluency                  Close Read               Extended Read              Application

Fluency:

AIM: Reading with automaticity, accuracy and prosody.

How will we achieve this?

• Teachers will model and children will echo back to them.
• Children will practise reading the same passage three times.

Fluency practice is repeated oral reading with children reading in partners after modelling and discussion of vocabulary with a teacher. During this lesson, we aim to complete the cycle twice:  Model the reading of a short text (approximately 1 minute in length) and discuss unfamiliar vocabulary briefly (show pictures to illustrate meaning if this would make meaning clear more quickly). Read the text again to the children, with them echoing the text back to the teacher. Children read the text to each other (one guides with the ruler whilst the other reads and roles are reversed). They ought to achieve 3 reads each within the time.

The lesson involves some discussion of meaning and questioning at the end of the session, but the focus is developing fluency.

Extended Read:

AIM: children reading and engaging with lots of text.

How will we achieve this?

• Children will answer word, sentence and text level questions.
• Children will answer 1 reflection question to finish session.

Extended reading involves prolonged engagement with a longer text/extract and therefore focuses on the development of fluency, word, background and text knowledge through exposure to text.

During the lesson, the timings will be two-thirds reading and one-third discussion approximately. Embedded reading routines will allow for maximum reading time - using repetitive language to avoid slow changes and pick ups. Every child should track the text with their reading finger. Not every child has to read every lesson as long as they are all tracking.

Discussion of the text and questioning happens as the text is progressing, not purely afterwards, but the key focus of an extended read is children are engaged with lots of text.

Close read:

AIM: rich and valuable discussion.

How will we achieve this?

• Children will learn how to read a text carefully and think about what they are reading.
• Children will think about words, sentences and whole texts and have a discussion about text together.
• Children will respond reflectively throughout the session perhaps adapting responses in light of discussion.  

Close reading is the traditional ‘close’ look at text, analysing meaning of a shorter paragraph, often around a theme such as use of metaphor, punctuation, description, etc. The time balance in this session is one-third reading and two-thirds discussion guided by the teacher as the text is picked apart. In this session meaning will be established and analysis of text should happen.

Application:

AIM: show the depth of their understanding

How will we achieve this?

• Pupils will respond to questions about the text red (independently or in guided group).
• Pupils will practise formal question techniques (find and copy, true or false).

In this lesson pupils will answer VIPERS* questions about a text and may complete an activity based on a text which encourages pupils to think more deeply. Children will have an activity to complete in books which will demonstrate depth of understanding and allow the opportunity to practise formal question techniques e.g. find and copy/true or false.

Application is responding to text studied that week independently or in a guided group. Children will be given an opportunity to show the depth of their understanding and to respond to questions about the text (some of which reflect the style of question children will experience in testing).

*VIPERS are an acronym for the 6 reading domains in our reading curriculum; Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval and Sequence/ Summarise.

Assessment - Teachers use formative assessment within phonics, guided reading and reading lessons to inform next steps and clarify misconceptions. In Phonics, Little Wandle assessments are also used every 6-8 weeks to support pupils learning and overall attainment in Phonics is measured with the Phonics Screening at the end of Year 1. For reading we also use PIRA tests termly to identify gaps in learning. At the end of Year 6, reading attainment is measured using the statutory assessments (SATs) and we also use the optional key stage 1 tests at the end of Year 2.

Children will be able to read and have a lifelong love of reading. Children will develop preferences of author and genre. They will be able to verbalise these preferences and recommend books to their peers.