Reading

Subject Statement of Intent – Reading

At Holy Rosary, Reading is one of the highest priorities because we believe that it is key to academic success in all subjects. It is at the heart of everything we do, and we are passionate at growing a LOVE for reading. As a whole school, we encourage the children to read for pleasure, by providing them with opportunities to enjoy a good book. In EYFS, our main focus is Phonics and blending, in KS1, we focus on developing fluency and confidence, and in KS2 we encourage the children to explore different genres and recommend books to one another. We also value the strong links that reading has to children’s mental health and well-being, where they can relax and get lost in a book.

AIMS:

We ensure that children are provided with the highest quality of teaching in Reading, to enable them to become lifelong readers by the end of their primary education.

At Holy Rosary, children will:

read easily, fluently and with good understanding.
develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.
appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.
use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas.
are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate
engage in both fiction and non-fiction books

Key knowledge breakdown below

KS1 Key Knowledge

Lower KS2 Key Knowledge

Upper KS2 Key Knowledge

Reading in EYFS/ KS1

We employ a systemic approach to Reading using Ruth Miskins’s Read, Write, Inc (RWI). This is carried out daily in class, in differentiated groups. Each group begins teaching a focus sound for the day, followed by blending. Then it progresses onto reading words with the focus sound in, review words that have been previously taught, nonsense words, tricky/ common exception words, alongside a story book matched to their Phonics level with comprehension questions. Once the children are able to recognise all the sounds, can read a selection of real and nonsense words and can read fluently and confidently, they will then take part in our Reading lessons (see ks2 below)

Reading in KS2

In KS2 classes (and KS1 when the children are secure with their Phonics), Reading is taught daily, with each day focusing on a particular reading skill. The skills are predicting, vocabulary, visualising, inference, questioning, summarising, making connections and evaluating, all taken from the National Curriculum and research. The teacher will choose an age appropriate/ high quality text to focus on for 2 weeks. First, the teacher will read it aloud to the children to support comprehension and expression. The children are then given the opportunity to read same text independently each day, making a note of where they read up to after one minute to improve their fluency.

A love of reading

We promote reading for pleasure as part of our curriculum, allowing the children to share their favourite books from home and providing children with the opportunity to read for pleasure, in class and at breakfast clubs. We have books around all classrooms that are linked to History, Geography, Science and RE. There are planned events and trips throughout the year including, world book day, visits to the library and Author days each term. By the time children leave Holy Rosary, our aim is to develop competent readers who can recommend books to their peers and who also have a love of reading. During EASTER, we had a sponsored ‘Read-a-thon’ and an egg competition around books they enjoys/ are learning in class.

Assessment

Teachers understand the impact of knowing where their children are, through termly and weekly assessments and use this to move to learning forward and bridge any gaps. They also understand where their children need to be, through a secure understanding of the year group expectations and/ or pre key stage expectations. The reading lead monitors reading weekly, ensuring quality teaching and learning is taking place.

All year groups identify the lowest 20% readers after every assessment week. These children then receive one-to-one tutoring around Phonics/ fluency.

Statutory assessments

In Foundation stage, an EYFS Profile assessment is carried out in the final term of the year in which a child reaches age 5. This assesses the child in 7 different areas; communication and language, physical development, personal, social and emotional development, Literacy, Maths, understanding the world and arts and designs. In Year 1, the children will take part in a Phonics Screening Check in June with their class teacher. In Year 2 and Year 6, the children will take their SAT’s tests in Reading, Writing and Maths.

Phonics

The children are assessed within their first 2 weeks of school and are grouped according to their phonics ability. The reading lead will then assess and re-group all the children every 6 weeks, to allow us to stretch and challenge all children, as well as identify any children who may benefit from one-to-one tutoring. We then use the assessments to make sure that children read from books with the sounds they know, whilst they are learning to read. The also take an additional reading book from from our Read, Write, Inc (RWI) book bags. These match up to what the children are reading in their Phonics sessions. This allows the children to practice reading words that have already been taught and with sounds in that they have learnt.

Bug Club

Holy Rosary School have a very exciting reading scheme called Bug Club. It is available for all children in Reception – Year 6. The children each take one book from our Bug club scheme to read each week. It is then checked and changed in school.
Parents/ children can also access e-books at home for extra reading during the school week/ during holidays or during Covid isolation.

Teachers will allocate books at their level and there is also the opportunity to complete reading comprehension quizzes.

Below you will find key information about the scheme and how you can get involved. We hope that you and your child will love these books and enjoy reading them at home

BUG CLUB LETTER TO PARENTS
A PARENT GUIDE TO BUG CLUB

Holy Rosary End points in Reading

EYFS

KS1

KS2

Children in Reception can read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

Children in Year 1 will be able to read sentences in fiction and non-fiction books with increasing fluency. They will be able to read words with 2 or more syllables with confidence using their set 1, 2 and 3 phonic knowledge. They will be able to retell what happened in the story with confidence and be able to answer simple questions.

Children in Year 2 will be able to read sentences fluently with expression. They will be confident at reading common exception words and words with suffixes. They will be able to retell and sequence stories in detail. The will begin to use inference to understand what characters are thinking and feeling, and the possible actions they may make.

Children in Year 3 will have read a range of age appropriate texts both fiction and non-fiction and including poetry. They begin to understand the key skills of vocabulary, retrieve, infer and predict and are beginning to make simple explanations and summaries.

Children in Year 4 will have read a wide range of age appropriate texts both fiction and non-fiction and including poetry. They understand the key skills of vocabulary, infer, predict, explain, retrieve and summarise.

Children in Year 5 will have read a wide range of age appropriate texts both fiction and non-fiction and including poetry. They will be able to comment on the structure and layout of texts, the author’s choices and impact on the reader and their comprehension of a widening vocabulary.

It is essential that, by the end of their primary education, children in Year 6 are able to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education. They will understand and be secure in the key skills of vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieve and summary so that they are able to understand and discuss any text they are presented with in further education or wider life.