Reading

At Casterton Primary Academy, we recognise that reading is a fundamental skill needed to ensure our pupils achieve successfully throughout their lives. Learning to read is one of the most important things children will learn at our school. Access to almost every other area of the curriculum depends heavily on it, and as a school we strive to ensure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.

All pupils are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum. Comprehension skills develop through pupils’ experience of high-quality interactions and discussions with adults, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction texts. Throughout the school, the children are taught the skills they need at a rapid pace, but our aim is that the majority of the word recognition and decoding skills are taught in EYFS and KS1 so that by the time the children begin their journey through KS2, they are fluent readers and are able to access a range of texts. By implementing a rich, balanced and immersive curriculum, children are able to develop their understanding of how language works by looking at its patterns, structures and origins, and transfer their learning across subjects, demonstrating progression throughout the wider curriculum.

Each half term, a range of topic books are displayed around every classroom to support the development of knowledge and vocabulary about specific topics and enhance learning across the wider curriculum, simultaneously building a love of reading and satisfying a thirst for knowledge.

We want our children to love reading and to want to read for themselves. This is why we work hard to make sure children develop a love of reading as well as simply learning to read.

Reading take places in many ways across the school and the curriculum. Every child in school has a Brain Box book which is taken home and returned to school each day. This book includes the children’s home-school reading record in Reception and KS1 and a reading journal in KS2.

Early Reading and Phonics

The learning and application of phonics is the beginning of children’s body of knowledge, skills and understanding that are an essential to being a successful and passionate reader. The most direct route to reading for the vast majority of children is through systematically taught, synthetic phonics.

At Casterton Primary Academy, we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read.

At Casterton Primary Academy, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Children continue their phonic development at a rapid pace throughout Key Stage 1, with the expectation that the majority of children will achieve the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics screening check. Alongside phonics, in KS1, the teaching and learning focus is to develop children’s DERICS skills (Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Inference, Choice, and Summary). In preparation of end of KS1 assessments, the children will focus on one piece of text throughout the week, which allows them to build up a repertoire of language that they can use to decipher texts. Once the children gain a better understanding of the texts, these skills are developed thorough carefully planned assessment style questions to develop comprehension skills; these questions are carried out independently or with some support during the week.

Home Reading

Developing strong links between home and school reading is vital in ensuring children become lifelong readers. The school will support parental engagement with their child’s reading by ensuring that appropriate texts are sent home regularly, for both independent reading and books to be read aloud. This will be monitored through the child’s reading journal (Brain Box). We also hold specific reading meetings for year groups, especially in Early Years and KS1. This support is also offered and reminders given at each parent’s evening. Bilingual staff are also used to communicate with and set extra tasks/homework for our EAL/bilingual parents/carers.

In Early Years and Key Stage, the decodable reading practice book linked to the Little Wandle is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.

Helping Your Child to Read at Home:

There are lots of different ways you can enjoy reading with your child. You can help your child further by looking at the words they should recognise in their respective year groups.

To help your child with the fluency of their reading please practise reading the words in the correct list for your child's age.

Reading to them every day:

Just before they go to bed is a good time, but not in front of the TV.
Be enthusiastic about the story, or choose another.
Allow the child to choose whenever possible. Yes, they will often choose their favourite over and over again. This is quite natural.
If you try to change the story, or leave bits out, they will tell you very quickly.

Before you read you may like to:

Read through the story yourself first. (It’s a big help if you know the story well, as it helps you to lead up to the exciting bits and encourage joining in).
Decide good places to stop and ask; “What do you think will happen next?”
Decide which pictures to stop and talk about.

During reading:

Show your enjoyment, laugh, smile, look scared, look sad, sound excited, etc.
Run your finger along the line under the words as you read.
Invite the child to turn the pages over you may need to guide their hand at first.
Talk about the pictures. “Can you see the wolf hiding?”