Reading

We are committed to ensuring our pupils leave our academy as fluent and confident readers. We also aim to inspire a love of reading in them which will follow them into their later life. For this reason, ‘core texts’ are at the heart of our curriculum – these are high quality, engaging texts that lead our learning.

To promote reading further, we have introduced Oxford Reading Buddies, an online reading platform that gives each child access to a range of reading books at an appropriate level of challenge set by the teacher. The software enables teachers to see the books children have accessed and the skills they have rehearsed

At our academy, we recognise that reading is made up of these essential elements:

• Decoding
• Comprehension
• Reading for pleasure

 At Key Stage 1, reading is taught through:

• A daily ‘Phonics’ lesson – following ‘Read Write Inc’ programme
• English lessons – featuring core texts
• Daily Reading Comprehension – reading as a whole class to develop the skills necessary to understand a text
• Reading for pleasure assemblies
• Library sessions – promoting individual reading choice and reading for pleasure
• Targeted provision for those pupils needing additional support/challenge

At Key Stage 2, reading is taught through:

• English lessons – featuring core texts.
• Individual reading – home/school reading books, reading records and Oxford Reading Buddies
• Daily Reading Comprehension – reading as a whole class to develop the skills necessary to understand a text
• Reading for pleasure assemblies
• Library sessions – promoting individual reading choice and reading for pleasure
• Targeted provision for those pupils needing additional support/challenge

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Writing

Children need to write as a means of communication, as a way of clarifying their thoughts and as a method of recording their opinions and ideas.

Various types of writing are introduced to the children, enabling them to select the most appropriate skills for the task in hand. We also stress the importance of good spelling, sound grammatical structure, neat handwriting and quality presentation.

Pupils develop their writing skills through exercises covering:

• Narrative writing – sci-fi, fairy tales, myths and more
• Non-fiction report writing
• Creating fact files
• Shaping persuasive and explanatory letters
• Non-chronological leaflets and reports
• Poetry
• Newspaper articles
• Biographies and auto-biographies
• Playscripts