“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Frederick Douglass

At West Didsbury CE we are passionate about reading and reading for pleasure is a key to developing a love of reading which inspires children to explore, learn and grow. Every child deserves the chance to become a reader, reading is a passport to the world. Reading great literature opens children up to ideas, experiences, places and times they might never otherwise experience in real life.

Every child at West Didsbury CE will have the opportunity to come into contact with, listen to and read high quality books through a variety of different ways.

The teaching of phonics and reading at West Didsbury CE Primary School is of the highest priority. We are committed to ensuring that every child will learn to read, regardless of ability, need or background. Giving pupils the key skills in English, enables them to access material in all curriculum areas, and provides a foundation for their learning throughout their school career and beyond. We are committed to inspiring every child to be excited about books and motivated to read for pleasure.

At West Didsbury CE Primary School, we intend:

· for every child to be a reader

· for early readers to have the skills to decode words in order to be able to read fluently · for children to understand what they have read

· for children to respond with curiosity about what they and others have read

· for children to become enthusiastic and motivated to read for pleasure

· to develop children’s confidence in reading a wide variety of genres and text types

· to develop children’s knowledge of a wide range of authors and illustrators

 

How we teach reading

We teach reading through the following;

• Daily phonics lessons in Reception, Year 1 and if necessary in Year 2- we follow the ‘ELS’ Programme because it is a systematic, synthetic approach, which is recommended as the most effective way for children to learn to read. Phonics learning is revisited throughout the day and connected to all curriculum areas, with the aim for all children to make rapid progress, so they become fluent readers as quickly as possible. During lessons, children are identified to participate in daily 'keep up' sessions for extra practise.

 

• 1:1 reading – Children who have been identified as our daily readers will have a daily reading activity. This could be 1:1 reading with a particular focus, a phonics activity or a daily activity. This may be carried out with a teacher, teaching assistant or learning support assistant. We will often have parental helpers offering to read with a child. Each parental helper is trained in reading 1:1 with a child.  There activity will depend on their phonic ability and books will be decodable and matched to their secure phonic knowledge.

 

• Attainment small group guided reading - Guided Reading sessions are led by the class teacher or teaching assistant and will last 30 minutes. There can be up to 6 children in a Guided Reading group, and they are all reading the same book (range of text types — fiction, non-fiction, play scripts, newspaper etc.).

Year 1 and Year 2 have a guided reading carousel. See the link below for the type of reading activities that the children engage in. This allows opportunities   for children to read a variety of different texts such as age appropriate newspapers and magazines, engage in a reading activity or complete a follow up activity based on what they had read the previous day.

• Whole class guided reading – Years 4, 5 and 6 have some of their guided reading sessions as whole class. Whole-class reading sessions means that children of all attainment bands are immersed in the same high-quality literature and the discussions that these texts promote. There may be children with additional needs who cannot access whole class texts and will therefore have adapted work with additional adults. Years 5 and 6, use whole class texts and have a weekly sessions on a specific reading skill which is taught discretely. Year 3 and Year 4 use a variety of whole class texts and extracts, focusing on whole class texts towards the summer term.   Year 3 currently use a blended approach with some children receiving whole class guided reading and others having smaller guided reading groups. In the summer term – year 3 will move to all children having a whole class guided reading approach. 

 

• Reading Aloud Story Time from the Reading Spine - We would like all children to develop a love of reading and understand which books they enjoy and why. There is a reading spine for reception, year1, year2, year 3, year 4, year 5 and year 6. Within each spine there is a large collection of books which aim to provide depth and breadth to the children’s reading. Please see the Reading Spine year group overviews for details on books listed on the reading spine.

 

• Non – Fiction Reading Spine – We have an established wide selection of non-fiction texts per year group, per half term linked to history, geography and science. These books support the development of background knowledge and provide additional reading for those children who enjoy non-fiction texts. These books will support the teaching of specific subject areas, whole class reading, or they could be accessed independently by the children.

 

• Library visit - At WDCE our library is stocked with a high range of high-quality texts and resources. Our resident librarian is font of book knowledge and along with her library monitors helps to run and administer the library effectively. It has attractive displays of books and resources which are rotated throughout the year dependent on topics and current affairs. Each class has a timetabled time to visit the library each week to choose books to read at school or enjoy at home. Story time is often held in the library and children have the opportunities to snuggle up with book. 

 

• BookFlix – is a list of relevant, up to date books to encourage and reward wider reading for pleasure outside of school. Children can bring their Bookflix card to any adult in their class to have a book signed off once it has been read. A selection of the books will be read aloud to the children at school. Children can swap five of the texts for books of their own choosing. Please see the link for the books listed on the Year 5 and 6 BookFlix.