Reading intent
Within Mo Mowlam primary department reading is a top priority and is a key driver for our curriculum.
It is our intention to ensure that by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently and with confidence, in preparation for their transition to secondary education.
We therefore intend to encourage all pupils to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop: knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live; to establish an appreciation and love of reading; to gain knowledge across the curriculum; and develop their comprehension skills. We are committed to providing a variety of exciting and enriching reading material to support our young learners in developing their vocabulary and love of reading regardless of age and ability.
Implementation
- The systematic teaching of phonics has a high priority. All children complete a thorough phonics assessment regardless of age upon their starting school. We use Read Write Inc as a vehicle to teach phonics across school
- Staff systematically teach learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them.
- Phonics is delivered in small group format to ensure children who are accessing phonics outside of KS1 are accessing a range of resources to help them with more specific difficulties that may be identified during phonic sessions
- Timely intervention is planned for those children who are working below expected levels upon the completion of baseline assessments
- Confident readers are encouraged to explore a range of texts with a focus on developing robust comprehension skills
- The school ensures all texts are accurately matched to pupil ability and are graded to ensure progression and challenge for all children. We use a range of different reading schemes including: Oxford Reading Tree, Tree Tops and Project X and Read Write Inc.
- All staff use the reports generated by Rising Star and CAT 4 assessments to identify teaching approaches that will address the areas of need for individual or groups of children.
- Books are carefully selected by teachers with the knowledge of how they link to other areas of the curriculum.
- All children across school have a daily reading slot. Teachers use these to teach a range of techniques which enable children to comprehend the meaning of what they read.
- All classrooms have their own class reading areas with a wide range of reading material to encourage a love of reading
- Progression is established through the use of sequential learning steps: Teachers read to pupils very regularly (with at least one daily story time in every class group). We use the Talk for writing approach in English lessons that provides pupils with a coherent approach to reading and writing. Alongside this, we have a focus on developing comprehension skills by providing retrieval, prediction, comprehension and inference tasks which are sequenced according to year group and ability.
- Any children not making the expected progress have 1:1 or small group intervention using bespoke packages.
Impact
The Reading curriculum is evaluated through
- Analysis of Phonics and TA assessment information
- Analysis of End of KS1/KS2 outcomes
Summary – Due to pupils joining the school at various points throughout the academic year with significant gaps in learning due to social, emotional and mental health difficulties and poor attendance - we have put in place the following steps to improve outcomes in reading:
- A robust bespoke intervention package for pupils to quickly identify gaps in reading and put in necessary interventions
- Dyslexia screening for every pupil upon entry
- Sensory programmes in order to identify and address any sensory problems that may be impacting upon progress in reading