Reading

I love spending time in the library, I can sit on the beanbag and read my favourite Harry Potter book (Year 6 Child)

Reading Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement

Intent

At Great Kimble, we believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers. At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through our Bug Club phonics programme, exciting diverse independent readers and a wide range of teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought provoking texts. We therefore intend to encourage all pupils to read widely across both fiction (including poetry and playscripts) and non-fiction so all children are exposed to a variety of literature, genres and authors to:

Develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live;
to establish an appreciation and love of reading;
to gain knowledge across the curriculum, and
to develop their comprehension skills.
develop the self-awareness to understand the kind of reader they are.

We are committed to providing a broad and diverse range of texts and books from across the curriculum which are rich in vocabulary. The sharing of stories is central to our provision throughout the school so children enjoy both reading and being read to as part of our daily timetable. Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps and to target the highest possible number of children attaining the expected standard or higher. We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves, persevere and pursue success, always ‘reaching for the stars’.

Implementation

What does reading look like at Great Kimble?

To begin our reading journey our children follow the Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme ‘Bug Club Phonics’. Decodable readers are introduced after just 10 days’ teaching at the end of Unit 2. This enables children to apply the taught strategies and enjoy contextualised reading early on.
Our children then move onto using carefully matched Bug Club colour banded books. These books cover a wide range of imaginative fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry that provide a steady progression of challenge for the learner. When our children have moved throughout the colour bands they then progress onto free readers.
We ensure children read with an adult at least once a week and books are regularly changed.
We recognise the importance of parental partnerships in our children’s reading journey and this is encouraged through ongoing feedback and monitoring individual reading records.
Identified priority readers are listened to more frequently, including disadvantaged and SEN pupils.
At Great Kimble we have a skills based approach to reading using VIPERS skills within regular Guided Reading lessons (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explain, Retrieve and Sequence/Summarise).
Guided reading sessions are delivered through a whole class approach and the texts are selected to ensure progression and challenge. In Key Stage 1 we follow the Fred’s Teaching approach which immerses the children in a wide range of broad and diverse texts and extracts. In Key Stage 2 the children move onto to a very similar approach, Ashley Booth that again exposes our children to a diverse and exciting reading spine that embeds a love for reading.
Our Guided Reading timetable is consistent across the school: Monday – Book Talk, Tuesday – Guided Reading (FT/AB), Wednesday – Guided Reading (FT/AB), Thursday – Guided Reading (FT/AB), Friday – Book Talk.
Class novels are enjoyed daily and are carefully selected from our Pie Corbett reading spine that links closely with our Writing curriculum (Talk for Writing approach).

Great Kimble Reading Spines (Rolling Programme Year A)

Great Kimble Reading Spines (Rolling Programme Year B)

Promoting a love of Reading

The reading areas in each classroom are designed to be comfortable and relaxed. The children sitting on comfy cushions or chairs – allowing their mind to get into a book, these serve as a constant reminder for the children to pick up a book and start reading. These, alongside our spacious school library, are accessible, welcoming places that are stocked with good-quality, appropriate books. Each year group has a dedicated Library session each week for them to share a range of books together and take out Library books to read at home.

In the warmer months, The children have the opportunity to visit our outdoor Reading Cafe during breaktimes and lunchtimes, They can sit with a friend to quietly enjoy a book or take part in one of our compression quizzes or even write a book review.

Each class is provided with a Reading Scrapbook, This is a creative book that is taken home by each child throughout the year. These scrapbooks give the children an opportunity for them to reflect on some of their favourite reads from home. They can draw a picture, write a review, write an adaptation, paint their feelings...whatever they want! We then share their thoughts and feelings with the rest of the class.

We also encourage our children to share their love of reading through a weekly recommended read section on our newsletter where the children are given the opportunity to share some of their favourites with the whole school community.

Recommended Reads for each Year Group (Books for Topics)

Impact

What you will see:

All children fully engaged in their learning.
Children that enjoy a diverse reading spine.
Children who are excited to share their enjoyment of reading with others.
Children confidently explaining how they use their VIPERS skills.

How we know how well our pupils are doing:

Adults listen to all children read at least once a week.
Bug Club end of unit assessments highlight gaps and support the development of interventions.
Priority readers are read to more frequently.
PIXL assessments and data are used to identify areas for development for specific classes which are subsequently addressed with interventions either in a whole class setting, as small groups, or independently.

What do the children of Great Kimble say about Reading?

"I love it when it is the time of day when we get to read our class reader, Miss, Butler makes the story sound exciting and we link it to our guided reading work" (Year 3 Pupil)

"VIPERS helps me when I am reading my own stories, I like to predict what is going to happen and it helps me think about the words I use in my writing to make it more exciting" (Year 4 Pupil)

" We have been reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown as our class reader, I love it! we all laugh so much when Mrs. Andrews reads to us" (Year 2 Pupil)

"I enjoy guided reading, especially fiction! we have started a new suspense story and linking it to our new Talk for Writing story" (Year 6 Pupil)

"Every Friday we get to go to the library with Mrs. Cook. I love just looking at the books and reading them together. We get to borrow them and take them home to read" (Year 2 Pupil)