St Bartholomew's CE Primary School
All God's children learning and achieving together in faith with compassion
Contact Us
Sedgley Road, Penn, Wolverhampton,
West Midlands, WV4 5LG
St Bartholomew's CE Primary School is part of St Bartholomew’s CE Multi Academy Trust
Our Approach to Reading
Objectives
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Children will develop a love for reading and be able to make informed decisions about their individual preferences due to continual exposure to a wide range of high quality texts.
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Children will become confident readers who can read fluently and accurately using a range of decoding and encoding skills.
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Children will become enthusiastic, responsive and knowledgeable readers.
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Children will read a wide range of material in different and appropriate ways across all areas of the curriculum.
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Children will understand and critically respond to authors’ use of language in a range of texts.
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Children will learn how to use clues to reach conclusions, evaluate and predict what may happen.
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Children will interpret and use organisational devises such as chapter headings, sub-heading, changes in print and typeface to gain a full understanding of a text type and an ability to navigate it appropriately
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Children will use skills they have developed to become critical readers to help them achieve success and progress in writing.
The fundamental aim of St Bartholomew’s approach to the teaching of reading is to ensure that the needs of every child are identified and sequences of phonics and reading lessons are pitched to promote accelerated progress for all pupils. We strongly believe that promoting a love of reading throughout the curriculum and beyond, with clearly built in progression, is key to ensuring the success of our pupils, regardless of their starting point. Early identification of pupils who need extra support, through dialogue with teachers and the analysis of progress and attainment data, enables appropriate intervention to be implemented so that no child falls behind. Intervention groups for gifted and talented pupils means that we never put a limit on what our children can achieve. This is fully promoted in all lessons.
Expectations, both of teachers and pupils, are extremely high. Pupils at St Bartholomew’s strive to improve and enjoy success whilst developing a passion for and appreciation of a wide range of literature. All the staff at St Bartholomew’s have a strong desire to nurture a love of reading and this is achieved through our personalised and individualised curriculum. Regular monitoring of attainment and progress in reading through: observations, book trawls, analysis of data, pupil progress meetings and discussion with colleagues helps to ensure that the teaching of reading evolves in response to the needs of our pupils.
Objectives:
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Through the consistent delivery of a systematic, synthetic phonics programme, taught in nursery and from the beginning of Reception, all children will be able to decode texts to help them to become confident and fluent readers. We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress. Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy. Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
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Children will develop a love for reading and be able to make informed decisions about their individual preferences due to continual exposure to a wide range of high quality texts.
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Children will become confident readers who can read fluently and accurately using a range of decoding and encoding skills.
-
Children will become enthusiastic, responsive and knowledgeable readers.
-
Children will read a wide range of material in different and appropriate ways across all areas of the curriculum.
-
Children will understand and critically respond to authors’ use of language in a range of texts.
-
Children will learn how to use clues to reach conclusions, evaluate and predict what may happen.
-
Children will interpret and use organisational devises such as chapter headings, sub-heading, changes in print and typeface to gain a full understanding of a text type and an ability to navigate it appropriately
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Children will use skills they have developed to become critical readers to help them achieve success and progress in writing.
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Approaches to the Teaching of Reading
When children start EYFS they will be introduced to the Little Wandle phonics programme. In nursery this starts as whole class teaching as children are taught to listen for sounds in words which later builds to recognising written sounds.
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The teaching of high quality systematic synthetic phonics teaching continues into KS1 (years 1 and 2). All children will have a daily, dedicated phonics lesson, following the Little Wandle programme. These lessons will be engaging, interactive and meet the needs of all pupils, allowing them to make sustained and accelerated progress. Children will be taught to blend sounds to decode words, sentences and whole texts. Children are taught to use phonics knowledge and use visual cues to aid word recognition. As children become confident at decoding and word recognition, their fluency develops and allows them to develop their understanding of the texts they are reading (reading comprehension). Whilst both word recognition and comprehension are crucial skills to help children become confident readers who can critically engage with texts, the ultimate aim of the teaching of reading is to develop comprehension skills and therefore their ability to use literature to learn, appreciate and enjoy. Children in KS2 will continue to be taught the necessary phonics and context cues to help further develop fluency; however the main focus of the teaching of reading in KS2 will be to develop an in depth understanding of a range of text types and genres, addressing our overall reading objectives.
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Home Reading
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All children who are learning to decode through the teaching of phonics will have a fully decodable reading book which matches the phonics stage that that they have learnt, enabling them to practise these reading skills and further develop fluency. These books offer a structured progression to reading, allowing the children to practise and improve their reading skills at an appropriate level, through access to high quality, decodable texts. Once they have completed all stages of the phonics teaching, children will move onto our reading scheme which continues throughout KS2, choosing books appropriate for their ability. As a school we have invested significantly in new reading books following consultation with the children. The range of books available includes many by well-known and popular authors. All children will also bring home “books to share.” These may not match their reading ability but should be shared with parents and carers who can read these books to them. This will help develop and expand children’s vocabulary and comprehension further. The children have opportunities to read their books individually to their teachers and teaching assistants and are supported to change their reading book regularly, allowing them to swiftly progress through the scheme. It is crucial that children read daily, even for small amounts of time and at St Bart’s we appreciate the support from parents in hearing their child to read at home and recording this in their reading diaries.
Reading and the enjoyment of books is an integral part of each day at St. Bart’s and we endeavour to ensure that all children leave our school as confident, successful and critical readers, who have developed a lifelong passion for reading.
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