Intent:
At Starcross Primary School, we believe that reading is the most important part of the curriculum and an essential life skill. The development of reading skills is a key focus. We aim to inspire a true love of reading and are committed to ensuring all children are fluent, enthusiastic and motivated readers.

“Teach a child to read and keep that child reading and we will change everything. And I mean everything.” Jeanette Winterson

At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought-provoking texts. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading to enable all children to succeed.

We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves, persevere and aim high.

Early Reading and Phonics Implementation:
At Starcross Primary School, we use a synthetic phonics programme called Read Write Inc (RWI). This programme is a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to read and write words. Children access daily RWI sessions every morning. In the lesson, children are taught 40+ graphemes (sounds) and the skills to be able to confidently decode and blend the sounds within words independently.

This is supported by a comprehensive scheme of reading books which the children read in class and at home. RWI is designed to foster confidence and enjoyment in reading specifically because the children have already learned the sounds that will be contained in the books they read and are therefore, able to succeed in their reading.

Phonics Sounds
Phonics Sounds set 1_ 2 and 3

Expectations of Progress
Expectations of Progress

Fred says – Colours

Speed minutes Set 1- lesson 1

Speed minutes Set 2 – Lesson 2

Speed minutes. Set 3 – Lesson 1

Reading Implementation in KS2
In KS2, whole class reading lessons take place every morning for 45 minutes. Two days a week this is based on the class book and the other three days it is based on shorter texts. The shorter texts link to the wider curriculum, notable events and include poetry.

Renaissance Accelerated Reader
Renaissance Accelerated Reader is a computer-based program we use to monitor reading practice and progress. The Accelerated Reader programme encourages children to read independently at their own level and pace and helps to foster a love of reading alongside a passion to succeed.

Children ready for this scheme will be quizzed throughout the year to answer a series of retrieval, prediction and inference questions. This will then give them to a ZPD (Zone of Proximal development), so the children know which level reading books to read. The children complete a reading comprehension quiz after every book to ensure they have read and understood the book they have chosen; this helps the children to develop their reading comprehension skills. Teachers use the quiz scores to track each child’s progress and ensure they are continuing to make progress and succeed.

Reading interventions are in place for those children who are not progressing with their reading or who have been identified as the lowest 20% of our year group readers. We provide interventions to support and develop their reading skills. In order to maintain consistency, catch up interventions produced by Read Write Inc are utilised across Key Stage 2. This might include reading with an adult or a buddy reader from another class as well as targeted 1:1 support. The impact of these interventions is monitored and reviewed half termly.

Reading at Home
At Starcross Primary School we believe that regular reading at home is an important tool in developing reading skills. Levelled titles from the Read Write Inc and Accelerated Reader schemes are used for home-reading to ensure that children experience a wide breadth of reading opportunities across different genres. The children are provided with a reading book and a Reading Record. This is the way we communicate between home and school, and we ask that parents regularly feedback how their child is progressing.

Reading for Pleasure
Each classroom has a book corner, with an inviting selection of fiction and non-fiction books. Children are encouraged to use these areas in the classroom as a calm space to read.

Every class is read to by their teacher daily. Our reading spine includes a range of genres and are diverse.

These are one of our favourite sessions of the day.

KS2 Reading Spine
KS2 Reading Spine

Impact
As we believe that reading is key to all learning, the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter the wide and varied magical worlds that reading opens up to them. As they develop their own interest in books, a deep love of literature across a range of genres cultures and styles is enhanced.

Through the teaching of systematic phonics and reading enquiry, our aim is for children to become fluent and confident readers who can apply their knowledge and experience to a range of texts throughout the Key Stage 2 curriculum. The children will have learned to read books to enhance their knowledge and understanding in the curriculum and to become life-long readers.

For our Year 6 readers transitioning into secondary school, we aspire that the children will be fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure and enjoyment, as well as use their reading skills to unlock learning in all areas of the curriculum.

In addition to this we expect that:
• Parents and carers to have a good understanding of how they can support reading at home and to contribute regularly to home-school records.
• The percentage of pupils working at age related expectations and above age-related expectations will be at least in line with national averages and will match the ambitious targets of individual children.
• There will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (e.g. disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged) from their starting points.