HOW WE TEACH READING AT WHEATLANDS
Teaching our children not only to become proficient readers, but to develop a love of reading is of vital importance at Wheatlands. Evidence suggests that children who read for enjoyment every day not only perform better in reading tests than those who don’t, but also develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that reading for pleasure is more likely to determine whether a child does well at school than their social or economic background.
READING FOR PLEASURE
We encourage reading for pleasure through our well-stocked library, and Y5/6 reading area, where our reading ambassadors and librarians take an active role in making book recommendations. Each week, children in every class have the opportunity to recommend texts that they have enjoyed and wish to promote in reading assemblies; and reading ambassadors are involved in creating termly reading newsletters which are shared with children and parents.
In order to foster a shared love of reading, each week classes have a timetabled ‘Book Talk’ session. During this time, children have the opportunity to sit comfortably together, share books and take part in ‘book blether’.
PHONICS AT WHEATLANDS
We teach our children to read using a systematic synthetic phonics approach. Synthetic phonics refers to an approach to the teaching of reading in which the phonemes [sounds] associated with particular graphemes [letters] are pronounced in isolation and blended together (synthesised). For example, children are taught to take a single-syllable word such as cat apart into its three letters, pronounce a phoneme for each letter in turn, and blend the phonemes together to form a word. Synthetic phonics for writing reverses the sequence: children are taught to say the word they wish to write, segment it into its phonemes and say them in turn, for example d-o-g, and write a grapheme for each phoneme in turn to produce the written word, dog.’
We follow the Read, Write, Inc. Phonics scheme, which the children begin upon arrival in Reception or sooner if children are ready. The children in Reception and Key Stage One actively take part in a daily phonics session.
We group pupils homogeneously, according to their progress in reading rather than their writing. This is because it is known that pupils’ progress in writing will lag behind progress in reading, especially for those whose motor skills are less well developed.
We make sure that pupils read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and the common exception words. This is so that, early on, they experience success and gain confidence that they are readers. Re-reading and discussing these books with the teacher supports their increasingly fluent decoding. Alongside this, the teachers read a wide range of stories, poetry and non-fiction to pupils; they are soon able to read these texts for themselves. Our aim is for pupils to complete the phonics programme as quickly as possible. The sooner they complete it, the sooner they will be able to choose books to read at their own interest and comprehension level.
Reading is assessed half-termly and analysed by the Phonics Leader. This data informs future planning and groupings. More information on RWI can be found in the parent leaflets below.
RWI Phonics Parents Info book 1
RWI Phonics Parents Info book-2
READING PLUS
Reading Plus is an adaptive, online reading development programme which is accessed by children in KS2 who can read independently to further improve their fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills. This programme can be accessed in the classroom and at home.
WHOLE CLASS READING
Whole Class Reading takes place daily in all year groups. During this time, the children develop their fluency and comprehension by listening to, reading aloud and discussing a wide range of age specific texts independently, in pairs and in groups. A key purpose of these lessons is to help the children draw on their background knowledge to construct a coherent mental model of what they are reading or listening to discussing a wide range of rich and challenging texts though teacher led discussion.
In whole class reading lessons, teachers will spend time teaching / activating children’s background knowledge and vocabulary to ensure all children can access the texts. Whilst reading lessons will focus on the teacher modelling reading, every session will include opportunities for children to practise and develop their fluency (accuracy, automaticity and prosody). Twice a half term, children will have a ‘Readers Theatre’ lesson when introducing poetry and non-fiction texts where they will have a dedicated lesson focussing on fluency using age related texts.
During whole class reading lessons, teachers will model, and children will use, a ‘skills and strategies’ discussion prompts sheet which focus on the strategies ‘predicting, asking questions, clarifying, summarising, and making connections’ and the skills ‘inferring, evaluating and retrieval’ to support and deepen their understanding of the texts. Orally, during the session, the pupils will discuss an array of these strategies and skills within one lesson. During independent tasks, the pupils will respond to the texts shared by completing work in their reading journals. Once a week the children will practise answering questions which require a written response on parts of the text already discussed to demonstrate their learning and understanding.
Children in Years 4-6 additionally have access to Reading Plus- a self-led programme designed to increase the reading speed and stamina of our pupils, as well as giving them access to a wealth of additional texts
READING BOOKS
When the children begin school in Reception, they begin by reading picture books, and then progress on to books with words at their teacher’s discretion. Teachers assess when children are ready to move on to the next reading level and so this continues through the rest of the school, using the RWI programme.
Three times a week, the teacher will read aloud to the class a book which has been chosen in collaboration with the children. These sessions will provide opportunities for the children to listen and concentrate, as well as hearing a model of fluent reading.
Daily ‘Book Talk’ sessions will take place in classes across KS1 and KS2, where the children will have the opportunity to read their chosen books, recommend books, read with a partner in order to support their intrinsic motivation to read.
REWARDING READING
At Wheatlands Primary school, we celebrate positive reading behaviours, both at home and at school, using ‘the portrait of a strategic reader’ and ‘fluency rubric’ to support decisions. In weekly reading assemblies, one child from each class is chosen to receive a certificate for reading. Whilst our aim is for children to read intrinsically for pleasure, by focusing on positive behaviours we aim to encourage all children to become strategic readers and support them to develop a love of reading.