Reading

Reading Curriculum Intent

Every day at St John and St James, children take part in a carefully planned reading session. They work in groups in a highly structured reading programme led by skilled, trained adults. Reception and KS1 Classes also have daily phonics lessons.  We use Read, Write Oxford Reading Tree resources in school to support progression in reading. Children in reception and key stage one will be given a book to take home from the Oxford Reading Tree scheme.

Reading in KS1

Independent practice half term

At St John and St James we have implemented a new phonics scheme since September 2019. Read Write Inc is a literacy program used to teach reading. This has been developed by Ruth Miskin to provide a structured and systematic approach to literacy and reading. Read Write Inc was created and designed to develop fluency and accuracy in reading. The aim of the program is for children to move quickly as possible into higher reading level groups, where they become confident readers and can self-select their own books and read completely independently.

Read Write Inc starts from our Nursery which encourages our younger children to be exposed to sounds and early reading at a very young age. This is then built on into Reception and KS1.

Children learn various skills to help and encourage them to read in an exciting way by learning to blend with Fred the puppet, decoding words like robots and developing their comprehension through short fun stories. As part of the program children read alien (nonsense) words which are phonetically decodable including being able to make up their own alien names which continues to develop their understanding of sound blending knowledge. Read Write Inc provides a close link to writing opportunities where they become more confident writers.

Read Write Inc is also used to support those new to English as well as children who may need extra support with reading.

All staff who teach Read Write Inc have regular coaching and are highly skilled in teaching phonics.

Please click on the link below for further information on Read Write Inc.

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/

Reading in KS2

In Key Stage 2, children build on what they have learnt in RWInc and apply this knowledge to more complex texts. They take part in daily ‘Destination Reader’ lessons, which focus on pupils’ inference and speaking and listening skills. Pupils work through a range of texts to practise their ‘sentence stems’, which relate to different inference skills. These sentence stems are then embedded across the curriculum, with teachers encouraging pupils to use what they have learnt in Destination Reader to strengthen their comprehension and explanations in other subjects. 

Where children require additional support for reading in Key Stage 2, we have small reading groups. These sessions are matched to the pupils’ reading level: some will focus on decoding and reading at a sentence level, some will focus on fluency, and some will focus on developing early comprehension skills. These groups teach explicitly the skills that pupils need to be ready for the Destination Reader sessions. In addition, for a small number of pupils, we continue RWInc tutoring where it is needed. This supports pupils who need a little extra support to secure their phonics skills. 

What are we reading now?

Autumn 2

 

Home reading

There are lots of resources available for pupils to use to develop their reading skills and their love of reading. Both are important: pupils need to continue practising ‘how to read’ in KS2 whilst also learning to love reading. This will give pupils the skills and cultural capital they need to flourish now, in the next stage of their education and in the wider community. All children will have books to read from school; please speak to your child’s class teacher if you have any queries about this. 

Scholastic Learning Zone

All children in KS2 are set books to read on Scholastic Learning Zone, an online learning platform with an enormous library of books. They are set 10 books per half term, with an expectation that they read at least 6 books per half term. Throughout these books are comprehension questions, to support the development of pupils’ retrieval and inference skills. Please speak to your child’s class teacher if you need their login details.

https://slz03.scholasticlearningzone.com/resources/dp-int/dist/#/login2/GBR 

Comprehension Questions

When reading with your child at home, ask them the following questions or similar questions to help develop their comprehension skills alongside their fluency.

  • Look at the front cover. What could the book be about? How do you know? Who is the author? What is an illustrator? What do they do?
  • What does that word mean? Read around the word to help you work it out (context).
  • Use your phonics to help you read that word. Can you break it down and then blend it together?
  • What do you think will happen next? Why?
  • How do you think that character feels? Why? How would you feel in that situation?
  • Can you predict how the book will end? What clues do you have for your prediction?
  • Is there a hidden message in the story? How do you know?
  • Could you summarise the story in your own words?

Books for Topics

If you would like ideas for high-quality books for your child to read at home, have a look at the links below. The ‘Books for Topics’ website has a wide array of book lists, organised by age (e.g., Year 1, Year 2, etc.) and by theme (e.g., Egyptians, rivers, etc.). We have a lot of these books in school but the lists are a good starting point for when visiting a local library or purchasing books for home.

Booklists by age: https://www.booksfortopics.com/key-stage-book-lists

Booklists by topic: https://www.booksfortopics.com/topics 

Click on the titles below to expand each section.

Remember to always encourage your child to talk about reading, ask them what sounds they learned, share endless stories with them at home and never forget to praise them!

 

 

RWI at home

Parents hand outs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkXcabDUg7Q

Set 1

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Special Friends

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Set 2  
Set 3  

To encourage our children to read more at home and in school, we have launched our ‘Get Caught Reading campaign’. We encourage our teachers and parents, to share our pupils love of reading on our school Padlet. https://padlet.com/sglover14308/ccfqob2f63s3ps16 This is a great way for our pupils to share what they are reading and provide recommendations to others.

World Book Day

We’re celebrating World Book Day on Friday 2nd March. Find out more about our World Book Day competition.

In Key Stage 2, children are encouraged to make free choices of books based on their own interests from the class book area. In years 3-6, children follow a structured reading programme that builds on key reading skills every week using a set text. This programme is named ‘ Destination Reader’.

Every class is equipped with a book corner with a range of fiction and non- fiction which children can use for their home reading books as well as our school library.

The rules of grammar are taught as part of a unit of work. Children will also practise their speaking and listening skills as drama activities are included in the units of work.

Spellings and handwriting are taught separately in discrete lessons. We use a cursive script for writing which children are introduced to from reception.

We are very fortunate to have a very well stocked library. All children get to visit the library every other week and the library is open during lunchtime for children to use.

Roald Dahl day took place on the 14th September.  As a school we celebrated the day with various activities from a range of his books.

Of course Roald Dahl has written many books and they are used in many year groups across the school.

How many titles can you name?

Year 1

Year 1 designed chocolate bars based on the book, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, they looked very tasty!

Year 2

Year 2 are learning a dance to the song ‘Pure Imagination’ from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and we look forward to seeing the final piece.

Year 3

Year Three wowed us with a piece of drama from Matilda.

http://drive.google.com/file/d/1z_Ds26Z9XWUWKcZ-zbxRCBFktimYszrz/view?usp=sharing​

Just use your google classroom log in to see the video!

Year 4

Year 4 made dream jars and wrote adjectives to describe the dream jars.

Year 5

Year 5 took part in the draw along, along with many year groups.  They drew a cute and friendly mouse from the Witches. If you missed out on the draw along the link is here.

Year 6

Year 6 wrote amazing character descriptions from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.