English - Reading

Within our broader English Curriculum planning, our intent for reading is clear:

We aim to instil a love of reading in each child.
To expose all children to a wealth of language-rich texts.
To be independent and resilient readers.
Within Key Stage One, children will reach the expected standard in phonics and become fluent, confident early readers.
Children will develop their comprehension skills, enabling them to understand literature more deeply.
Children to be exposed to a world of words which they can take with them on their learning journey

Approach to Reading

Reading is seen as a clear priority on class timetables, and the teaching of reading at Maple Grove Primary School is made up of the following elements:

Home Reading- daily
Phonics- daily within EYFS and KS1 for all children and LKS 2 if needed.
Daily Whole Class Reading in the form of Little Wandle guided reading for EYFS and KS1, Guided reading sessions. 4 x a week 30 mins. These are separate but may complement literacy sessions.
Modelled and shared reading within the English curriculum and across the broader curriculum.
Pupils regularly read books and stories aloud (timetabled and consistent across the key stage), which is evident in subjects beyond literacy.
A storytime/class novel daily featuring ‘demonstrated reading’ from the teacher (a chance for the teacher to model fluency and the process of making inferences when reading to pupils).
Opportunities for fluency development (reading a text is modelled by an adult or a peer. Pupils can then read the same text aloud with appropriate feedback).
Teachers extend pupils' vocabulary across all subjects.
Classrooms should show reading as a clear priority.
Pupils have access to high-quality texts and the school library.

From Year 2 onwards, the children participate in guided reading lessons in the whole class. These lessons involve reading, oracy, and writing about an interesting variety of fiction and nonfiction texts. The children take on reciprocal reading roles (predictor, summariser, clarifier, and questioner) that focus on comprehension strategies they can apply to reading new texts.

At Maple Grove Primary School, all teachers highly value reading and understand its importance. Teachers who read aloud to their classes motivate their pupils to read. Reading helps develop vocabulary, comprehension, and information-processing skills.

Phonics at Maple Grove Primary School

Phonics is the first step to reading. At Maple Grove Primary School, phonics teaching is integral to a child’s reading success.

We ensure children have a firm grasp of phonics by teaching using the Little Wandle programme in Nursery, Reception, Year 1, and Year 2. Little Wandle is a consistent reading programme that combines phonics and reading. We pride ourselves on our small-group phonics teaching, which ensures the appropriate level of support and challenge for the children. Please see more information about how we teach phonics here.

All staff have received professional training to ensure that they can deliver high-quality phonics teaching and early reading strategies. We believe all staff need a firm foundation in early reading skills to support struggling readers of all ages.

All children in Reception and KS1 classes will receive at least one daily phonics session. We believe in a mastery approach to phonics where all children are exposed to whole-class teaching.

The teacher is responsible for the teaching of phonics to all children; well-qualified teaching assistants support the teaching and intervention, but the teacher has responsibility for the learning of all children

Children’s growing phonic knowledge is closely assessed and tracked away from the point of teaching to ensure that all staff know their strengths and areas for practice in reading. Home phonic reading books are targeted appropriately and changed regularly.

Early reading

Alongside our phonics teaching, children can apply their phonic knowledge using the Collins Big Cat reading books. These have been carefully selected to ensure that the home reading books are closely linked to the sounds taught – so that children do not encounter words they cannot decode.

Reading beyond phonics

Once children reach Year 2, complete phase 6 in phonics, and can access more demanding texts, they will progress to Book Banded Reader. Reading books are graded by difficulty into reading levels known as Book Bands. Each Book Band has its own colour. The document below gives an indication of the range of Book Band levels at which most children will be reading as they progress through primary school.

The chart shows the progress of an ‘average’ band of children- but no individual child is ‘average’, so no child makes smooth progress precisely in this way. Children tend to learn in fits and starts – periods of growth followed by periods of consolidation when their progress seems to halt. The periods where you don’t see rapid progress may be worrying, especially after a ‘growth spurt’, but they are important as your child develops confidence in using and applying their newly acquired skills.

In addition to the professional judgements of the class teacher, they will be assigned an individual book band level. This level will dictate which books children can choose from. Our books are carefully organised into these levels making it easy for children to locate a book suitable to their needs. Once children have read a book, they take a short comprehension quiz to see how well they understand the text. The quizzes provide a great source of motivation to pupils and essential information to teachers about how well a child has understood the content within the book. Teachers can then use this information to ensure that the texts children access are suitable.

Home reading expectations

We believe reading regularly at home has immeasurable benefits for our children.

Our school provide each child with a home reading diary to record their reading and progress. We expect our pupils to read at least 5 times a week at home and actively encourage parental involvement to support their children.

Children who do not read at home and fall behind will be afforded reading opportunities with adults in school.

Developing healthy reading habits is something we strive to embed into our pupils from the very beginning.

Reception

Children take a phonic book home once a week which is matched to the appropriate phonic phase which has been taught. We recommend children read this book repeatedly during the week to develop their decoding skills and fluency.

Children will also bring a reading-for-pleasure book home as a family. We believe it is vital children develop a love of reading.

Year 1

Children will also bring a reading-for-pleasure book home as a family. We believe it is vital children develop a love of reading.

Year 2

Once phase 5 has been completed, children can choose an appropriate levelled Book band book. They can read this at their own pace. However, the school expects children to read at least 5 times a week to maximise their reading progress. Once the book is completed, they then take a reading quiz and can choose a new book.

Assessing Reading

It is vital that reading is continually assessed throughout school—not just when children learn their phonic sounds or at the end of the year. At Maple Grove Primary School,, assessment is an ongoing process.

Reception and Year 1 children are assessed half-termly to track progress and identify areas for improvement. When they reach Year 1, they will take the phonics screening test in June to assess their phonic knowledge and understanding. If they do not reach the expected standard in Year 1, they will receive additional phonic support and be closely monitored and tracked into Year 2, where they will retake their phonic assessment.

Reading is assessed using various tools, including benchmarking, teacher judgments and, more recently, NFER reading assessments. From Year 2, children will be assessed termly SAT reading comprehension tests. These assessments provide accurate information about a child’s strengths and areas for development.