Reading

Summer 2023 Activities

Developing Reading skills through our Reading Journey at Rose Hill Primary School.

We understand that reading is a ‘foundation skill for all learning.’ For academic success, children must learn to read, then read to learn and teachers must understand and facilitate this process. Successful reading is a self-fulfilling cycle, where children are exposed to greater background knowledge, which can then be brought to new texts leading to greater understanding, increased success academically and beyond.

Our Intent

Our intent is to ensure that all pupils read fluently at an age appropriate level, can comprehend what they have read, and develop their own habits and preferences in reading for pleasure. We believe the following are crucial steps in this journey:

decode words fluently, quickly mapping out their meaning, connecting them to prior background knowledge
actively draw on their background knowledge to make sense of a text
possess a broad and deep vocabulary knowledge
read quickly, accurately and with the appropriate expression
read for longer, with greater effort and persistence
read extensively and are repeatedly exposed to vocabulary, gaining a depth of word knowledge (and developing further background knowledge)
have a sound knowledge of text structures (important for accessing reading across the curriculum), seeking out structural conventions like headings to organise their knowledge into memorable patterns
automatically deploy comprehension strategies, like predicting or summarising
constantly monitor their comprehension, asking questions like ‘does this make sense’?

Our Implementation

In practice our reading journey is implemented through the following stages. This is broken down further within our Reading Journey.

Shared Reading

In practice, shared reading happens in many forms, during class story time, the teaching of reading, and as part of the teaching of curriculum subjects. In may be evident as:

teacher reading to the whole class
whole class reading a text with teacher and / or pupils reading passages of text
teacher / TA reading with a small group
peers reading to each other
text discussion

Children are exposed to a wide range of texts with an appropriate level of challenge. Texts include a wide range of genres and media, including digital texts. Explicitly teaching the features and structure of different text types will enable children to ‘read to learn’ across the curriculum.

Phonics

At Rose Hill, children are taught daily phonics following the Read Write Inc programme lead and monitored by the phonics ‘Reading Leader’. Phonics teaching is continued into Year 3 and children requiring extra support continue to receive small group or 1-2-1 phonics provision. Children requiring phonics support in Years 5 and 6 are supported by Fresh Start interventions. Children new to English are provided with appropriate phonics support throughout Key Stage 2.

For more information on phonics please visit the phonics area of our website.

Vocabulary Development

Vocabulary is explicitly taught through:

selecting high-quality fiction texts for English lessons and shared reading
fostering word-consciousness through sharing the etymology and morphology of words
the systematic teaching of spellings and independent word-learning strategies

Vocabulary teaching is also embedded throughout the curriculum by:

teaching academic vocabulary explicitly and clearly, with coherent planning throughout the curriculum
promoting and scaffolding high quality academic writing in the classroom

Fluency

Once phonic knowledge is secure, reading fluency is taught using strategies such as:

modelled fluent reading fluent reading of a text is modelled by an adult, with discussion of why the reading was fluent and how that helps understanding, followed by pupils reading the same text aloud
assisted reading pupils read a passage of text as best they can, while simultaneously hearing a more fluent reading of the text by a teacher or peer
repeated reading pupils re-read a short and meaningful passage a set number of times, or until a suitable level for fluency is reached. Repeated readings can occur during the same learning session, or over a series of consecutive sessions.

For the fluency activity selected, teachers will:

select a high-quality text suitable for reading orally with expression. Poetry, narratives, scripts are a good choice and songs, chants and other rhythmic texts are an engaging choice for pupils
provide and audience (this could be the teacher, peers, or whole class evaluation) and consider how pupils will receive feedback on their oral reading.

Comprehension

‘The ultimate aim of reading is comprehension: understanding the meaning of a text’ (Quigley, 2018). Alongside fluency development, comprehension strategies are taught. These are:

word meaning understanding the meaning of words and phrases meaning in context
prediction making a logically plausible guess as to what will happen next
retrieval locating information in a text
inference understanding the layers of meaning in a text
language choice the effect of words and phrases on the reader
comparison identifying differences and similarities within and between texts
sequencing ordering the events, actions or ideas in a text
summarising stating the main events, actions, or ideas in a text

Through mastering these skills and understanding when to apply each skill (or combinations of skills), pupils can successfully comprehend age-appropriate texts.

Our Impact

Children enjoy reading and develop a love of reading. All children receive support appropriate to their need to ensure they can develop early reading skills. Vocabulary is woven into the curriculum and given prominence within each subject taught.

To see our progression of skills in reading please click below: