Reading

The member of staff responsible for the development of this area is Mrs Beech. She is responsible for developing, supporting and monitoring our aim of deepening confidence and independence in our children who develop a lifelong love of reading.

 What?

At Holy Trinity, we aim to provide our children with life skills whilst also reading for pleasure and enjoyment. Reading unlocks many doors for them; it helps to improve their breadth of language and vocabulary, stimulates their imagination and gives them the opportunity to gain new experiences, through a broad range of texts. The curriculum in Reading is mapped carefully to ensure that children acquire, apply and deepen their knowledge, vocabulary and skills in a well-thought out and progressive manner. New learning is based upon what has been taught before and prepares them for what they will learn next. There are clear endpoints, which our children work towards on their learning journey. We know that if they are learning our curriculum, they are making progress and are being prepared for the next stage of their educational journey from Nursery to Year 6.

How?

Early reading skills are prioritised, from developing our children’s phonological awareness in Early Years, through to Year Two, where the children learn to decode fluently. These skills are taught through the systematic, synthetics phonic programme Jolly Phonics. Daily phonic lessons are taught in Nursery, Reception and Year One. There is a sharp focus on ensuring that children acquire a wide range of vocabulary and communicate effectively. The Early Years’ Curriculum offer builds on a key text for the half term, broadening to introduce children to other works of fiction and non-fiction. National Curriculum teachers follow the Holy Trinity Reading Process, when planning a sequence of learning. This typically spans three weeks and Years One to Six receive three reading lessons per week. These lessons interlink with the Writing Process and are based around a specific class text. The Reading Process is outlined below:

 Week 1:

• 2 x skill focussed lessons (vocabulary and retrieval),
• 1 x round up hound up (using WAGOLL or class text)

Week 2:

• 2 x skill focussed lessons (inference and 1 other),
• 1 x round up hound up (using WAGOLL or class text)

Week 3:

• 1 x big read (all skills, unfamiliar text and timed) including a practice comprehension,
• 1 x reflective read – edit and improve
• 1 x round up hound up (using WAGOLL or class text)

This process is well-organised and adaptable, providing purposeful opportunities for our children to be taught important reading skills as well as apply them in a range of ways, appropriate to each class. Keep Up intervention is planned for during each reading lesson to enable individual pupils to progress and demonstrate achievement. Reading is prioritised to allow pupils to access the full curriculum offer. Each class has daily OSCAR (Our School Cares about Reading) time identified on their ti metable to develop reading for pleasure. In each year group, cross-curricular reading is planned for in the form of ‘cross-curricular reading hits’. During an afternoon foundation subject lesson, ten minutes is devoted to the application of one of the key content domains; retrieval, vocabulary or inference.

Reading for pleasure is promoted with the vast collection of books in our libraries, book fairs and the celebration of World Book Day. Our Early Reading Library contains the full set of Jolly Phonic reading books, so that pupils are reading texts that connect closely to their phonic knowledge. Other books, from a range of schemes such as Collins Big Cat, Oxford Reading Tree and Project X are in our libraries across school, are grouped by book band, to provide a clear progression through texts. 

Our children are well prepared for the phonic screening test in Year One, which gives them a foundation for future learning, especially in preparation for them to become confident and fluent readers. We offer phonic workshops for parents to support their child's learning at home. Children that do not pass the phonic screening test are supported with targeted intervention, to support them in reaching the expected standard by the end of Year 2.

Phonics Tracker is used with all children from Nursery to Year One and then for specific pupils, from Year Two upwards, to track attainment, progress and gaps in learning. When a pupil is not on track with age-related expectations in reading, Catch Up intervention is put in place through group or 1:1 reading support, enabling them to catch up and achieve in line with their peers. 

So?

Our children make good progress, demonstrate sustained learning and develop transferrable skills. They enjoy reading regularly, for information and for enjoyment/pleasure. Children confidently discuss books with excitement and interest, making links between other books they have read. The introduction of the Reading Dogs across school has enabled children to clearly identify and use the skills needed to understand a range of texts. The number of pupils achieving both the Expected Standard and the Greater Depth is consistently above the National Average at Key Stage Two. Our Phonic Screen results are also consistently above the National Average as well as the average of Wolverhampton schools. However, we firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments. We give all children the opportunity to enter the magical worlds that books open up to them. We promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading curriculum. Our children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors to enhance a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles.