Reading is at the heart of the curriculum at Chandlers Ridge – we place great importance on the value of reading and actively promote it at every opportunity. We use a rigorous and systematic process to teach phonics to allow our children to start their reading journey (see phonics on website). Our timetable has reading activities every day to practise and promote the skills necessary to enable our children to become avid readers. As a cornerstone to our curriculum, we pride ourselves in having current, high quality reading resources and prioritise the learning of new vocabulary and giving children every opportunity to be successful. Below are links to the reading spine that we have created for each year group. These are ambitious choices that can be shared that cover a wealth of authors and genres.
Story time / class book
In EYFS and Key Stage 1, all children have a daily story time where they can hear an adult reading to them. This allows us to introduce the children to a plethora of stories and hear adults reading with expression. Some of these are class favourites that all can join in with; others are by newer authors or include themes for discussion.
Key Stage 2 are introduced to longer titles through class book. This is read several times a week and includes a mix of the teacher and / or of children. This enables us to discuss a longer text and also for us to hear the children read aloud frequently. Promoting a culture of enthusiastic readers is important and the class enjoying discussions on a book engages them and makes them consider the ideas of others.
Class Library
Each of our classrooms has a dedicated, well-stocked reading area that promote a love for reading. We regularly choose new books to ensure our books are up to date and also cover a range of genres, interests and ability levels. Many of these books can be borrowed so children can share these at home.
Reading skills lessons (comprehension)
Children from Year 1 to Year 6 have a weekly reading skills lesson. During this time, comprehension skills are taught explicitly using shorter extracts and written responses. There are 8 areas of reading that we study:
- Retrieval – recalling key details from the text.
- Inference – using details from the text and background knowledge to make judgements about aspects of the text.
- Prediction – Using details from the text and background knowledge to make plausible predictions based on the text.
- Summarising – Identifying and commenting on the text’s main points.
- Word choice – Discussing the effect of words and phrases used in the text.
- Word meaning – understanding the meaning of vocabulary in the text.
- Relationship – Commenting on the way the text has been structured.
- Comparison – Making comparisons about events, characters and structure in the text.
Banded reading books
Children can bring a broad selection of banded reading books home, in order for them to practise their reading. We encourage children to read at home frequently to become more fluent and confident. The scheme includes a variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry and the children have recently commented in pupil voice that they find the titles fascinating to read and that there is a lot of choice.
Guided reading – EY and Key Stage 1
In order to improve reading fluency and comprehension, children from Reception upwards take part in weekly guided reading sessions. We celebrate a wide range of books with the children, using our phonetical knowledge to decode the books as well as being introduced to many area of comprehension.
Reading Plus – Key Stage 2
Our Key Stage 2 children use the electronic website, reading plus, to develop their comprehension skills. This uses their prior knowledge to give them an individual, personalised reading curriculum, allowing them to read a wide range of texts that they can choose.
