Reading

Reading Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement

Intent

At Eccleston St Mary’s CE Primary School our aim is for every child to become a fluent reader in order for them to reach age related expectations or, indeed, to exceed these expectations. We also recognise that Reading is a life-skill and crucial for children’s continuing development both academically and in the wider world. In addition, we encourage children to discover the pleasure of reading and hope that they will learn the joy that can be experienced through reading.

“If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” J.K Rowling

Our curriculum is designed around the needs of the pupils in our school and there are a variety of approaches to enable the pupils to make good progress.


The aims of teaching reading in our school are to develop pupils who:

  • show high levels of achievement and exhibit very positive attitudes towards reading;

  • rapidly acquire a secure knowledge of letters and sounds and make sustained progress in learning to read fluently;

  •  read easily and fluently with good understanding across both fiction and non-fiction;

  •  acquire a wide vocabulary;

  • participate in the teaching of phonics knowledge, skills and understanding in a systematic and enjoyable way;

  •  develop their reading in all subjects to support their acquisition of knowledge;

  •  develop a love of reading;

  •  read for pleasure both at home and school on a regular basis;

  •  through their reading, develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually;

  •  develop good comprehension drawing from their linguistic knowledge.

Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) / Pupil Premium / Higher Attainers
All children will have Quality First Teaching. Any children with identified SEND or in receipt of Pupil Premium funding may have work additional to and different from their peers in order to access the curriculum, dependent upon their needs. In addition, our school offers a demanding and varied curriculum, providing children with a range of opportunities in order for them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve highly from their starting points.

Implementation

Our school follows the Letters and Sounds programme for Phonics from EYFS into Key Stage 1. Phonics is timetabled daily and lasts for 20 minutes each day. Phonics teaching can also continue into Y3 for those children who have not yet made expected progress by the end of KS1.

When children first become readers they have access to our range of phonetically-decodable reading books. Readers are grouped by ability and have a timetable of reading based activities, suitable for their ability.
Guided reading occurs daily throughout school. Infant children access guided reading through small group activities led by the class teacher or teaching assistant. Children in KS2 take part in whole-class guided reading with activities selected or adapted from the Ashley Booth scheme.

Each classroom has a wide selection of books, some of which are directly linked to the class topics. This offers opportunities for pupils to apply their reading skills across the curriculum.

Children are read to regularly by their class teacher. This can be a book that the teacher recommends to the class or a recommendation from a child.

Children have the opportunity to take part in ‘Reading Buddies’, in which children mix with other children from different year groups and share a book together.

At Eccleston St. Mary’s, we celebrate ‘World Book Day’ each year but develop it into a themed week where the whole school will read books that follow a similar theme. The week culminates in the traditional dressing up as a favourite book character (if at all possible, linked to a character from the book being studied by the class) and a Celebration Assembly with parents at which we share examples of work and learning experiences that have been inspired by the books we have read.

Impact

Reading in our school is progressive and planned to meet the needs of all children. Assessments are carried out regularly to ensure children are accessing books of the right level and are being challenged in their reading. At the same time we provide books to ensure that children read for pleasure and learn to love reading.If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making expected or more than expected progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

  • Phonics assessment;

  • Phonics screening results;

  • Book band colour – assessed using Benchmarking;

  • Reading ages

  • Summative assessments each term;

  •  End of Key stage SATs results.

By the time children leave Eccleston St. Mary’s CE Primary School, they are 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. They can also read books to enhance their knowledge and understanding of all subjects on the curriculum, and communicate their research to a wider audience.
Above all, we hope, quite simply, that all children leaving Eccleston St. Mary’s CE Primary School will do so having acquired a lifelong love of books and reading.