Being an Author (Reading)
At Wick, our aim is to equip all children with the necessary skills needed to become confident and competent readers. We understand the fundamental importance reading has on a child’s ability to access the wider curriculum, make progress and ultimately succeed in life. It is our mission to open children’s minds to the magic and joy of reading, by introducing them to a wide range of carefully chosen literature. We believe all staff, in partnership with parents, have a vital role to play in contributing to the teaching of reading. They will improve their vocabulary, sentence structures and knowledge of the world. We aim to teach the children to read fluently and with understanding. We promote a love of books and an enjoyment of reading. We intend to build a community of engaged readers who see reading as a pleasure and utilise it as a transferable skill.
The school aims to:
- Provide the children with the skills and strategies necessary to develop into competent and fluent readers
- Encourage the enjoyment of books and reading so that the children develop a life-long love of books
- Develop study skills so that the children can find appropriate fiction and non-fiction books from the library.
- Develop a critical appreciation of the work of authors, poets and illustrators in order to emulate these skills in their own writing.
- Encourage care and ownership of books.
- Make sure children are familiar with a large bank of rhymes and stories including nursery rhymes, traditional tales and stories from other cultures.
- Provide a rich and varied diet with a range of authors and books to suit different interests.
This is achieved by delivering a comprehensive reading programme to our children starting when they join us in Reception until they leave in Year 6. We operate on a keep up not catch up modal. We wholeheartedly believe reading to be an entitlement for all children and value it as a key skills for academic success. Our children are encouraged to read for purpose.
Reading for Practice Reading for Pleasure Reading for Meaning
Early reading
Our children begin their reading journey by learning to decode. At Wick we teach phonics through a systematic programme - The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds scheme which follows a clear progression and ensures synthetic phonics teaching. High quality phonics teaching provide our learners with the skills of how to read, this supports reading for meaning and ultimately makes reading pleasurable. The children will have daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1 where they will learn:
- grapheme‒phoneme correspondences in a clearly defined, incremental sequence
- synthesise (blend) phonemes (sounds) in order through a word to read it
- to segment words into their constituent phonemes for spelling
- that blending and segmenting are reversible processes
We use the Little Wandle Big Cat Collins books to ensure all children are given an appropriate phonetically decodable book to take home each day alongside a reading book of their choice which they can share with an adult or sibling at home.
Reading beyond phonics
As children progress from phonics they will access a daily reading lesson in year 2 and KS2. This is a mixture of whole class reading and guided reading. Whole class reading occurs three times a week and allows all children to immerse themselves in high quality texts regardless of word recognition/fluency ability. These sessions are scaffolded to ensure every child can access the powerful discussions which occur around the text. The guided sessions allow teachers to focus on key skills (AREs) which are tailored to the cohort.
These sessions focus around the six reading domains which are represented to the children through the reading VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explaining, Retrieval, Summarising/Sequencing). This is introduced in KS1 and children quickly become familiar with the terminology. These are highly structured lessons which allow children to discuss and explore texts they have read or had read to them.
We believe reading belongs at the heart of our curriculum, so it is woven throughout everything we do. We have an enquiry based curriculum which is supported by high quality texts which are displays in all classrooms.
Tracked reading
From Year 2 and through KS2, children continue on our reading scheme facilitated by the Big Cat Collins reading books. These books are banded to ensure we maintain a clear progression for our children. Every child is assessed at regular intervals to check they are ready to progress. We aim to ensure children are not only fluent at their book band but have also reached an appropriate understanding of the other reading domains before progressing.
Alongside their banded book, children will also take home their reading for pleasure book. This may be a book from home, the reading corner or school library. We work carefully with each child to ensure they have selected a book which provided appropriate challenges whilst fostering a love of reading.
Reading beyond the curriculum
Children have the opportunity to read for pleasure every day and are read to daily by the class teacher. This is a protected slot in our time table and is an essential part of the school day. Children have access to high quality book corners which are updated regularly and texts are rotated to encourage children to explore the shelves. These are welcoming spaces which are freely used by children throughout the day. We encourage children to try new authors and genres whilst fostering a love of reading by modelling reading, talking about books and immersing our children in books.
Teachers read to children in all classes and this time is protected in our timetable. This reflects our belief that very child should have the opportunity to enjoying being read to. Story time may be sharing a short story or reading from the class text.
hildren also have access to our fabulous library packed with fiction and non-fiction books. Children are encouraged to check out books and spend time enjoying this wonderful space.
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Reading at home
At Wick, we are keen for our children to develop a love of books and place reading at the heart of our curriculum. Children have lots of opportunities to read throughout the day, access to the school library and we aim to provide them with age appropriate texts as they move through the school.
Reading Badges
Reading badges is our new reward based system for reading at home. Whether your child is an avid reader or someone who needs to discover the joy of reading, the badges give them an opportunity to work towards a milestone. Children move up through coloured ‘badges’ depending on how many times they have read throughout the week. Once a week, we check to see who has read at home by collect in the reading records to total up the number of reads. In our Celebration Assembly, children, who have reached a milestone for number of reads, will receive their rewards.
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What counts as a read?
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Example of how to fill out your child’s reading planner
