Reading
Early reading at St. Aidan’s is developed through the use of phonetically decodable books. Children have the opportunity to share books in: Guided Reading sessions, using phonetically decodable books, Shared Reading and Reading Recovery; class story at the end of the day; weekly library visits and continuous provision activities linked with a book of the week. Children take home a phonetically decodable book and a library book each week.
Reception take part in a weekly Rhyme Time session, with a phase one phonics focus and Story Time each week. Parents are invited to attend sessions, with the intention of modelling and encouraging continued learning of phonics and reading at home. Children in our reception class visit the local library every week where they take part in ‘Story Time’. The librarian uses current areas of interest/teaching topics to choose texts and creates an activity for children to complete at home.
Children in Key Stage One and Key Stage Two have twenty five minutes daily guided reading. In Key Stage One these sessions are completed as a carousel of activities, each week every child will read in a group with both the Class Teacher and a Teaching Assistant. Other appropriate activities will be provided on alternative days to reinforce the skills being taught such as: listening to audio stories and shared reading of a high quality text. Parents are invited into Key Stage One classes on a weekly basis to share in storytime sessions
In Key Stage two, guided reading is taught as a whole class. In these sessions, over a five day cycle, we first focus on modelling reading and understanding of vocabulary, moving onto explicit teaching of skills based around one text. In time, helping them to read and understand a range of high quality texts through both oral and written comprehension.
Children read to an adult in school as often as possible; this will depend on their stage of reading development. Children who are still in the early stages of reading need to read with an adult as often as possible. Staff will ensure that books are changed regularly, and books should be brought into school everyday. However, children who have repeatedly not returned reading books to school will not be allowed to take them home. These children will be targeted for extra reading with an adult in school.
Time for a shared class read has also been timetabled into each school day. Within these sessions, the teacher should read aloud for the children’s enjoyment. For children in Y1-Y6, one session per week will be allocated as library time, children have the opportunity to pick a book to read or share with their family purely for enjoyment.
Teachers will continually monitor and assess children’s progress against National Curriculum objectives. These judgements will be reported to the Senior Leadership Team on a half termly basis. To support the teacher’s assessment of children’s progress and attainment in reading, children will take formal reading comprehension tests three times over the academic year. The results of these tests help to give an indication of progress and how successfully the child is meeting the year group objectives, and give an approximate reading age for each child. This tool helps us to ensure that children are reading books that are appropriate for their stage in reading.
Other evidence of progress and attainment in reading will come from a Reading Speed assessment completed three times per academic year. The results of both tests enable teachers to gain a more comprehensive idea of strengths and weaknesses so that we can provide children with the best support possible to develop their reading. All results will be used to support and inform the final teacher assessment.
