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Easington Colliery

Reading

Reading

Reading is a vital skill in today’s society. It is how we discover new things, improve our imagination and enables us to educate ourselves. With this in mind, we are always aiming to improve reading ability, to enhance independence and self-esteem. Once pupils can read, we aim to promote an enjoyment of reading. Books, magazines and the internet are great learning tools, which all require the ability to read and understand what is read. Reading has been proven to increase life chances and increase pupils’ understanding of their own identity, improve empathy and give pupils a better understanding of their own world, as well as an insight into the world through others’ eyes.

EYFS & Key Stage One

All pupils in reception and year one are taught to read using the Read Write Inc. scheme. Read Write Inc. is a programme developed by Ruth Miskin, and is taught in over 5000 schools in the United Kingdom. The programme systematically teaches all of the common sounds in the English language, helping pupils to recognise the sounds and then to ‘sound-blend’ them into words for reading. Children become fluent readers and confident speakers as a result of this method of teaching.

Reception, year one and some year two pupils receive 30 minutes of RWI, each day. Children in year one are required to take a statutory check to assess their phonic ability.

In year two, when pupils are ready, they move towards more formal reading teaching, covering comprehension, inference and deduction, speed reading and retrieval, with more complex and advanced texts.  In addition, these pupils will begin our Ready2Read fluency programme - see below for more information. Year two pupils who are not ready for this, continue to receive the RWI programme.

In year 1-6, the teaching of reading takes place within our English learning journey, during English lessons.  The reading lessons taught prior to beginning to write include lessons informed by a range of reading strategies: beginning, middle and end identification; character studies and features studies, retell and respond work and comprehension studies in key stage one.

Key Stage Two

In years 3, 4, 5 and 6, pupils engage in Ready2Read, every morning 9-9:30am.  In these sessions, pupils practise their fluency, and will read with an adult at least once per week.  Teaching in these sessions includes choral reading, repeated reading and performance reading (taken from the EEF guidance, around fluency).  

Ultimately, the goal of teaching reading is to enable children to comprehend written texts. To do this, pupils need to build both word reading and language comprehension skills. However, developing reading fluency can provide a crucial bridge between the two, continually supporting pupils’ progression from learning to read to reading to learn.

In year 1-6, the teaching of reading takes place as part of our English learning journey, during English lessons.  The reading lessons, taught prior to beginning to write, include lessons informed by a range of reading strategies: comparison studies; comprehension work; model text analysis, and the ‘Reciprocal Reading’ approach, in key stage 2. 

Reciprocal Teaching is a contemporary application of Vygotsky’s theories; it is used to improve students’ ability to learn from text. In this method, teacher and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarising, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Pupils assume these roles in groups when reading or listening to a text (dependent upon ability they will either read the text or be read to), and use their knowledge of the process to hold mature and in depth discussions about age related texts. 

Children in year six are required to sit a statutory reading test, in May.

Additional Reading Experiences

  • In reception and year one, pupils enjoy songs and rhymes that promote speaking, listening and reading.
  • All pupils are read to during ‘class novel’ or ‘class story’ time, as frequently as possible.
  • English lessons are based around a story, text or author, wherever appropriate.
  • In key stage two, all English learning journeys contain a model text.
  • Curriculum lessons are inspired by different sources of research, which promotes discussion around reading.

Home Reading Opportunities

  • Reception and year one pupils take home a book matched to their ability.
  • Years 2,3,4,5 and 6 are given the opportunity to visit their phase library to select a book for pleasure, weekly/ fortnightly.
  • Century is an online resources for some pupils in Y3-6 to access reading at home.
  • Lexia is an online resources for some pupils in Y1-Y6 to access reading at home.

Catch Up/ Targeted Reading

At Easington Colliery Primary School, we believe in including all pupils in as many age related experiences as possible, with their peers, regardless of their working ability. If pupils still struggle to read fluently and accurately, they will still work  with their class and receive the teaching suitable for that age group, with reasonable adjustments made to ensure they can access these tasks.

In addition to this, pupils who need extra support with their reading will have an adult hear them read an ability-matched book, more regularly, to target the specific gaps in their learning.  We also have a range of reading interventions that take place to help pupils with their reading.