Reading

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” 

Dr. Seuss, Children’s Author

Why we teach your child to read

Supporting children to develop good language and literacy skills underpins educational success in all areas of the curriculum as well as building future achievement and rewarding lives.

By the time children leave Wilberforce Primary we want our children to be competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including poetry and participate in discussions about books including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader.  

Overall, it is our aim to promote a real love of reading which will ensure that they continue to be life-long learners.

What our curriculum looks like

We have developed an ambitious curriculum that starts from the EYFS to Year 6. Texts chosen are high quality and build on children’s language and reading skills. In EYFS and KS1 we place a strong emphasis on the teaching of phonics, so children quickly become fluent readers. As they progress through the school, we also develop comprehension knowledge so children leave use able to read and comprehend fluently.

In EYFS we share stories with children daily and develop a love of reading – we encourage them to retell and role-play their favourite stories. Children will be exposed to a range of texts – from traditional tales to nursery rhymes and this support their oracy.

In KS1 they continue to read and hear and read a range of texts which become more challenging. They receive daily phonics sessions, participate in comprehension sessions and read across the curriculum.

By the time pupils enter KS2 we expect them to have mastered phonics and will focus on developing their comprehension skills. The school has carefully designed a sequential reading curriculum which exposes children to texts which increase in difficulty as they progress through the school.

All children are read to at the end of the day for story time, this consists of carefully chosen texts which leaders have chosen to expose children to a wider range of literature which includes diverse authors.

We are fortunate to have a well-stocked library which children visit regularly to choose a book to read for pleasure.

Phonics:

In EYFS and KS1, we use the Sounds-Write programme to teach phonics daily. Sounds-Write is a DfE validated phonics programme, providing a highly structured, systematic approach to teaching children to read and spell. It teaches the key elements of learning how to read and spell through conceptual understanding, factual knowledge and the three skills of blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation. If you wish to know more about Sounds-Write phonics programme please click here. We strongly recommend all parents and carers complete the free Sounds-Write phonics course.

If children fall behind in phonics, the school will provide additional teaching, so they quickly catch up. This might be in small groups or 1:1 sessions with an adult.

Your child will be sent home books to read to improve their phonics – we call these 'decodable readers' at school. These are books that enable your child to practise the sounds and spellings that they are learning. Most of the words are words that they can decode because they contain spellings they have already learnt. We want your children to be able to read these books fluently so when your child reads these books to you, please let them have a go at reading all of the words by themselves. Sometimes, your child may need help with a word, but before you step in, please give them a few seconds to work it out for themselves.

If your child gets stuck, a great prompt to use is: 'Say the sounds (pointing to each of the ‘sounds’ in the word) and read the word' (slide your finger along, under the whole word).

You can also ask your child questions about the stories they read to you. Some of the words in these 'decodable books' might contain spellings your child hasn't learnt yet. At the back of the book, you'll see a list of the words that your child might need help with. When your child comes to one of these words in their book, simply read it for them. If the word was 'the' and your child didn't know how to read that word, you could simply point to the word and say: 'This is 'the', just say 'the' here.

We use a scheme called Dandelion Launchers and Readers as these books align with Sounds-Write so children can read books which link to the sounds they are learning in school.

Comprehension

As a research informed school, we have developed our own unique reading learning journey for the teaching of comprehension alongside the teaching of phonics in EYFS and KS1. Our whole class approach focuses on the teaching of background knowledge as this ensures children will be able to understand the text they are about to read (Willingham, D, 2009). Our journey starts with building background knowledge; moving on to the development of vocabulary and incorporates the teaching of the reading domains as outlined in the national curriculum.

How you can help your child at home:

Sharing a wide and diverse range of stories at home

 

Above are the links to a variety of stories featuring Black and ethnic minority characters and a range of settings from around the world for you to enjoy listening to with your child. These can be accessed by scanning the QR codes above each of the front covers. You can scan these using a camera on a mobile phone/device or a QR reader app. These QR codes will open the stories using YouTube.  We recommend that parents or family members watch these stories with their children so they can discuss the themes of the stories and also ensure children are not using YouTube unattended.

We have put together lists of texts which we consider to be age appropriate for your children:

EYFS and Key Stage 1

• Join your local library; Queen’s Park Library or Kilburn Library are a 10 minute walk from Wilberforce Primary.
• Ask your child what they would like to read, turn off all distractions, sit close together, look at the pictures, ask questions and have fun!
• Talk about what you see around you, read road signs, cereal boxes
• Download the Sounds-Write app for iPad
• Sounds-Write have twenty four initial code e-books available from Amazon. Speak to your child’s teacher about which unit they are on.
• Bookstart offer a great booklet for parents with children aged 3-4 and aged 4-6 with ideas on how to build a love of reading with your child. These are available in many different languages.

Key Stage 2

• Visit the local library together; Queen’s Park Library or Kilburn Library are a 10 minute walk from Wilberforce Primary.
• Encourage your child to carry a book with them wherever you go (this is something you can do too!)
• Have a family bookshelf of your family favourites.
• Keep reading together, just because your child is getting older, it doesn’t mean you have to stop sharing stories.
• Don’t panic if your child reads the same book over and over again.
• Buy a newspaper and encourage your child to read some articles.
• Watch the news together – this knowledge of the world will help children to build their background knowledge.