Reading Curriculum

At Woodley Primary school we have a clear, consistent, whole school approach to the teaching of reading. Our intention is that all pupils leave our school being able to read fluently in order to access all areas of the curriculum so they are prepared for the next stage of their academic journey and have a love of reading for pleasure as well as reading for meaning.

We recognise that competence and fluency in reading is fundamental to many aspects of life and is central to learning. We recognise the significance of proficient reading skills as being a key factor in the academic and social success of our children both during their time at primary school and beyond into their adult lives.

 

‘Pupils who can read are overwhelmingly more likely to succeed at school, achieve good qualifications, and subsequently enjoy a fulfilling and rewarding career. In addition to its substantial practical benefits, reading is one of life’s profound joys.

As pupils master decoding, it is vital that they are supported to develop speed and fluency, so that they become confident, mature readers. The best way to do this is to instil a passion for reading. Evidence shows that as the amount a child reads increases, their reading attainment improves, which in turn encourages them to read more. Reading widely also increases their vocabulary.’

‘Reading: the next steps. Supporting higher standards in schools’

March 2015

 

Reading is taught daily in every class through teacher-led sessions where a range of quality texts are used. We like to give our children a varied reading diet to engage and entertain all readers of every ability and taste. Questioning is used to develop children’s comprehension skills and discussion helps enable all children to get involved and have a voice. We use the VIPERS questions to cover the skills of: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing and summarising. We also send these question stems home to our families to aid discussions about books at home.

Additionally, we use age-appropriate texts as our reading spine to share a class novel every half term. This gives our children the opportunity to listen to a story, no matter their age, and enjoy a book they may not otherwise have read. Our children value this story sharing time and it is a key part of our learning time.

Children’s reading abilities are assessed through Benchmarking which matches to the Reading Recovery book levels. As you can see, progress through the RR levels is different across different year groups and more focus is given to comprehension, as opposed to decoding, the further up the RR levels a child moves.

Overview

Age of children:

 

Reading Recovery level expected:

 

Reception 6-8
Year 1 15-18
Year 2 25-26
Year 3 27
Year 4 28
Year 5 29
Year 6 30+
Progression Document
Woodley Reading Spine