Reading
At Braintcroft E-ACT primary academy, we believe that the ability to read is fundamental to pupils’ development as independent learners, during their time at school and beyond.
Reading is central to our ability to understand, interpret and communicate with each other and the world around us. Success in reading has a direct effect on progress in all areas of the curriculum. Therefore, reading is given a high priority, enabling the children to become enthusiastic, independent and reflective readers across a wide range of literature, including different text types and genres.
Reading should be an enjoyable experience, and allows children to develop both their imagination and their vocabulary. Reading for pleasure is based at the heart of our reading curriculum with DEAR story time every day in every year group and regular times to share and enjoy books.
At Braintcroft, we are committed to being a reading school. In order to fulfil this commitment, we:
- Place reading and books at the centre of the curriculum.
- Recognise that being able to read is a key life skill for children, whatever their background.
- Believe that every child can learn to read with the right teaching and support.
- Acknowledge that not all children will have had the opportunity to develop a love of reading at home, so this has to be taught and encouraged at school.
- Build time for all children to read independently, read aloud and be read to during the school day.
- Develop a coherent whole-school strategy for promoting reading for pleasure.
- Believe that every teacher should be a reader
- Develop time to training staff so they are equipped to support children’s enjoyment of reading.
- Involve parents to ensure the culture of reading that the school has developed extends into the home.
Phonics
Phonics is taught using the Reach, Write Inc scheme by Ruth Miskin. Read Write Inc. Phonics teaches children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. They learn to form each letter, spell correctly, and compose their ideas step-by-step.
Whole Class reading
Whole class reading lessons focus on a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts with each class using a high quality text as the stimulus for each half term. Across each year these books are used compliment the global goal themes to life and to promote a connectedness with the learning.
We place a high emphasis on vocabulary with our aim being to make all pupils ‘word rich’. Texts are carefully selected to be challenging and expose children to a wide variety of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary.
Lessons are structured in a way to help pupils learn more and remember more. Relevant background knowledge and vocabulary is shared with pupils at the start of a unit and every child is given a reading knowledge organiser which they can refer to and add to during the lessons. In addition, there are regular opportunities for retrieval practise and for pupils to transfer learning from one book to the next.
Reading interventions follow our validated scheme of Read Write inc. Interventions are organised for any pupils who are unable to access taught reading lessons or are not making sufficient progress. Class teachers work with the read lead, the inclusion team, the EAL team and external specialists to ensure that gaps are closed and the children are able to access whole class reading lessons when appropriate.
A focus on ‘every child being a reader’ is the driver for all children being able to read fluently and through overlearning and pre-teaching comprehend the texts that they are accessing.
