Reading
Curriculum Intent
It is our intent to develop a life-long love of reading in all children at Albion Primary School, knowing that reading provides children with access to our broad and exciting curriculum and will ensure they flourish as learners throughout their time at school.
We promote a positive culture of reading in all classes and promote reading for pleasure by creating inviting literacy-rich, well stocked book corners and an extensive electronic library. We encourage children to read independently and with enjoyment, both at home and at school, providing a wide range of texts which inspire and engage, introducing children to the magic of reading. Children at Albion are encouraged to read a wide range of literature, including classic and modern fiction and non-fiction books, poetry and plays and we use high quality and vocabulary rich texts across the curriculum that are carefully chosen to reflect the diversity of our school community and to support children’s understanding of the modern world, often linking to our core school values.
We teach children to read accurately and fluently using a range of strategies and we help children to understand and respond to what they read, using inference and deduction where appropriate. At Albion, children are taught how to seek information and learn from the written word, allowing them to unlock a world of knowledge.
Curriculum Implementation
Early reading forms the backbone of the curriculum in the Foundation Stage. We ensure all learning environments in EYFS are language-rich with exciting reading opportunities and books to support learning in all areas. Throughout the school day, staff share stories, poems, rhymes and other texts that develop pupils' vocabulary, language comprehension and a love of reading. Children are read to every day and parents choose reading for pleasure books to take home to read with their children. All children in Nursery take home nursery rhymes to learn each week and these are practiced every day. Reading is planned for through high quality provision and phonics, writing, spelling and grammar are taught within the planned Read Write Inc. sessions from Reception. Reading and phonics interventions support identified children across the phase to improve basic skills and attainment. Regular workshops support parents and carers to help their child learn to read at home.
When children are secure, speedy readers (often after completing Grey books in Read Write Inc.), children move on to Accelerated Reader. Books across the school are levelled and colour coded to ensure that children of all abilities are guided towards suitable texts that provide an appropriate level of challenge when reading both at home and school. Accelerated Reader time is timetabled every day and gives children time to complete quizzes which assess their understanding of what they have read independently. Completing quizzes allows all readers to develop a strong sense of achievement and motivation on their reading journey.
Through focused whole-class reading lessons at Albion, children develop strong comprehension skills and fluency, exploring a range of language rich texts from different genres. We carefully select high-quality texts to ensure that all children are exposed to ambitious vocabulary and have the opportunity to explore complex themes. Children develop oral and written responses to questions using VIPERS - Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, Summarise.
Teachers share whole texts with their classes as part of their teaching across the curriculum, allowing children to access texts that may be beyond their current reading capabilities, boosting the engagement and morale of struggling or resistant readers. These texts are selected based on the children’s interests or to develop or revisit past learning in other areas of the curriculum.
Children are given opportunities to read throughout the school day and we promote daily reading at home. Children are expected to read every day and keep a record of this in their home-reading log. We encourage all children to read widely and to discuss their books with their family members. Reading workshops and prompts in children’s reading log support parents and carers to engage with reading at home.
We are very excited about the development of our school library and we have close links with Canada Water Library, organising regular visits. Throughout the year, we promote reading for pleasure, enjoy story teller visits, run pre-loved book sales and organise school wide celebrations for World Book Day and host a Scholastic Book Fair for families to purchase high-quality texts to enjoy at home together.
Curriculum Impact
At Albion, we believe that reading is key to all learning, the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Our children are provided opportunities to experience the awe and wonder that reading opens up to them.
In EYFS and Key Stage 1, through the teaching of systematic phonics and reading enquiry, our children flourish and become fluent and confident readers. In Key Stage 2, children begin to develop their own preferences about reading and are able to apply their knowledge and experience to a range of texts through the Key Stage 2 curriculum.
We aspire that all children leave Albion as fluent, confident and able readers, who have become life-long readers for pleasure, and who have progressed from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’.
Summative assessments come in the form of NFER Reading Comprehension papers at the end of each term for pupils in Year 1,3, 4 and 5. Year 2 and Year 6 pupils are assessed using previous SATs papers to identify pupil attainment on a half-termly basis. Using the standardised scores from these papers, teachers make a teacher judgment each term which is tracked on Insight and used to report to parents.
Additionally, Accelerated Reader allows pupils to complete a Star Reader Quiz every half term for pupils in Year 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. This assessment provides personalised targets for teachers, along with providing a standardised reading age and ZPD book banding level for children to choose books at their correct reading level. Both of these are added to Insight and tracked by senior leaders as well as informing target setting and for reporting to parents.
