John Wesley COMP School

Statement of Intent, Implementation and Impact

 

Reading

Statement of Intent

At John Wesley, we believe that the teaching of reading is integral to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves. Our reading curriculum strives to foster a lifelong love of reading.  We cultivate the behaviour that they will need to be discerning readers as they read frequently and widely using self-regulation strategies and discuss what they read. This curriculum is delivered through synthetic phonics, a linked approach to shared and guided reading, home reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent reading and hearing quality texts read aloud every day. All of these are essential components as they offer the range of opportunities needed to develop fluent, enthusiastic and critical readers. 

It is important that children are motivated to read at home regularly; when their reading opportunities increase, so does their fluency and stamina, which in turn increases their enjoyment of reading. Therefore, the link between children’s motivation to read and reading for pleasure is reciprocal. Furthermore, we know that reading for pleasure is beneficial not only for reading outcomes, but for wider learning enjoyment and mental wellbeing. Thus, we work hard to foster a love of independent reading and build communities of engaged readers. We understand the significance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills, so we endeavour to build a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to have the confidence to support their children with reading at home. 

Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum. We are committed to promoting a love for reading and not only giving children opportunities to read in English lessons, but in the wider curriculum too.

 

Implementation (Early Reading and Phonics)

Learning to read is one of the most important things a child will ever learn. It underpins everything else, so we believe in putting as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible. We also want our children to develop a real love of reading and to want to read for themselves. This is why we work hard to make sure children develop a love of books as well as simply learn to read.

We start teaching phonics in our Reception classes and follow the Supersonic Phonic Friends synthetic programme , https://www.supersonicphonicfriends.co.uk/  which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. We also use cued articulation (sounds and actions) to support our children in remembering the pure sounds being taught. As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At John Wesley School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Alongside this, the children are taught ‘tricky words’ – high frequency words which do not follow the regular phonetic pattern.

Teachers regularly read with the children, so the children get to know and love all sorts of stories, poetry and information books.  This is in addition to the books that they bring home.  This helps to extend children’s vocabulary and comprehension, as well as support their writing. All classrooms have attractive book corners where the children can access a wide range of books, both fiction and non-fiction, to help embed their love of books, stores and reading.

Impact

Children’s progress in phonics is continually reviewed through daily informal and half-term formal phonic assessments and evidence from their reading and writing.

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

• Assessment for Learning/ Formative Assessment is used:
  • Daily within class t identify children needing keep-up support
  • Weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence), words and spellings.
  • Weekly in guided reading session identifying areas/ skills in need of focus and development
• Summative Assessment is used:
  • Every six weeks t assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need, interventions recorded on Class Provision maps.
  • Termly STAR reading assessment to track progress in vocabulary understanding and development using the Accelerated Reader Programme, adapting ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) range accordingly.
  • by Senir Leadership Team and scrutinised through the Supersonic Friends Revised assessment tracker, Arbor teacher assessments and pupil progress meetings to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

 

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

 

Ongoing assessment for catch-up

Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed continually and through their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment using the Phonics Tracker and interventions implemented as appropriate.

 

Implementation (Guided Reading in KS1)
 

Guided reading is taught 2 times per week – lasting 30 minutes and follows the ‘Pathways to Read’ Reading Programme. This follows the following weekly teaching timetable.

Lesson 1 – Whole class reading

• Reading aloud by the teacher is modelled at a suitable pace (age-appropriate) with opportunities for pupils to answer questions with a classmate.

• The teacher models the majority of the reading, but it is encouraged that pupils join in with parts of the whole class reading.

• The shared lesson always follows a four-part structure: predict, clarify vocabulary, read and retrieve, and read and explain (where the mastery focus is taught and practised).

Follow on task - independently

Tasks have been created to further practise the mastery skills taught in the shared reading sessions. These are straightforward, easy to follow tasks which allow for independent reflection on reading.

Pathways to Read for Year 1 only has shared reading sessions and does not have grouped reading sessions like the Year 2 to Year 6 units. This is because pupils in Year 1 are reading phonetically decodable books in line with The Supersonic Phonic Friends.

   

Implementation (Guided Reading in KS2)

Guided Reading is taught 3 times per week - lasting 30 minutes and follows the 'Pathways to Read' Reading Programme. This follows the flowing weekly teaching timetable.

Lesson 1 – Whole class reading
Children will take part in reading and understanding the chapter/chapters of the week from their high-quality class text. This may take place in the form of independent reading, teacher reading, partner (tennis) reading, or choral reading. During this session, there will also be a prediction / summarising, vocabulary understanding or sequencing focus in order to further understand the key events of the chapter.

 Lesson 2/3 – Children split into groups to complete two tasks over two days:

Group Reading – with an adult
Children re-read parts of the text and check that it makes sense, discussing understanding and explaining the meaning of words in context. Examples of Group Reading activities are:

 

• Find the meaning of unfamiliar words from the text using a dictionary.
• Find and copy / underline or highlight a word that means …
•  Match the definition of the word
•  Cloze Procedure
• Circle the word closest in meaning to …
• Match the word on the right to its synonym on the left.
• Use inference to understand author's intent
• Answering retrieval questions in full sentences based on the text
• Answering inference questions in full sentences based on the text

Follow on task - independently
Based on high quality independent reading; applying skills, breaking down the questions and answering in the appropriate way. Examples of learning activities experienced in a ‘Follow-on task’ session are:

 

• Writing their own retrieval questions
• True or False statements (explain why statements are false if appropriate)
• Fill the gap / find the missing word/ word
• Multiple Choice Questions

•  Roll on the Wall (Finding evidence from the text to back up information about a character if appropriate, e.g. I think Mole is a good friend because in the text it says ……)
• Say / think / feel (finding evidence from the text if appropriate)
• ‘Freeze Frames’ and ‘Thought Tapping

Implementation (Reading linked to writing in English Lessons)

In English, we follow ‘Pathways to Write’ and high-quality texts are used in writing to link to the ‘Pathways to Read’ text by subject, and ensure that learning is continuous and linked across our curriculum.

Please see our writing webpage for more information.

Implementation (Wider Reading)

Reading in the Wider Curriculum:

Each year, the group has a Connected Curriculum Question that links to a particular era in history, science or a geographical learning aspect. These in turn link to our Pathways to Write and Reading units.  Each topic is supported by a range of quality fiction/non-fiction texts. These are used for fact-finding, cold comprehension, group projects and reading for meaning and pleasure.

Impact

The whole school reading progression maps come from ‘Pathways to Read’ and are divided into year groups for assessing children’s reading and ensuring we cover the National Curriculum expectations in Reading. Children are assessed using a variety of methods, including Benchmarking, NFER Reading assessments, Accelerated Reader, Star Reader and practising SATS papers. Our test data comes from NFER papers, SATs, Benchmarking and Accelerate Reader. In addition, evidence from Guided Reading sessions/ Reading Journals is used to formatively assess children using the formative assessment sheets in order to identify gaps and plan subsequent lessons.  

Reading for pleasure and Home Reading:
 

EYFS has ‘Story Time’ daily and in KS1/2 the minimum expectation is 3x PW. The aim of this is to further expose children to a range of texts, promote the love of reading and to build the vocabulary that the children are exposed to.

 

Our school and class libraries allow children to immerse themselves in the wonderful world of books. They are stocked with an attractive range of fiction and non-fiction to support every ability and reading choice and encompass the latest reading trends and classic texts that should be part of every child’s primary school experience - building the children’s cultural capital. Each class has a weekly library slot where they can spend quality time exploring the texts it has to offer. During this slot, children are also invited to take home a ‘Reading for Pleasure’ book in addition to their school reading book. As a school, we try to support and address book poverty by providing a community reading shed for our families to take books home or to arrange ‘Book Swaps’. We also celebrate reading together throughout the year by taking part in both school-based, local and national reading initiatives, including the Kent Library Summer and Winter Reading Challenge, National Poetry Day, World Book Day, author visits, book swaps and extreme reading challenges. We also hold a scholastic book fair once a year, for parents to purchase the latest books for their children.

 

Children in Reception and Y1 take home a pure decodable book that is phonically decodable and matches the phonemes that they are secure with. In Y2, if children do not pass their phonics screening, they will also take home a pure decodable book that is matched to the phonemes they are learning in their phonics intervention.  From Y2, all children who have passed the phonics screening test and are fluent readers will move on to the Accelerated Reader programme. These children will take a Star Reading Test which will give them a ZPD, which enables the children to select home reading books at an appropriate level. Once children have completed their reading book, they take an Accelerated Reader reading practice quiz on that text to ensure that they are comprehending their independent reading. Parents can monitor these quiz results using the ‘Home Connect’ log in for Accelerated Reader that is sent home at the beginning of every year. For teachers, the quiz results of these tests, along with the teacher’s judgement, help us to decide whether the child is ready to move on to more challenging texts. It is through this that we ensure progression in children’s home reading.

 

In order to promote home reading further, all children in KS1 are encouraged to read a minimum of 3 times per week at home. Each time a child reads at home and an adult signs their Reading Log, these reads are counted weekly and the children receive certificates throughout the year linked to the amount of reads they achieve.  In KS2, children continue to receive certificates for reading, and they are encouraged to build their ‘word count’.