Reading

At Riverbridge, we place great importance on learning to read and reading for pleasure and recognise its value in enabling our children to access the rest of the curriculum. From the Foundation Stage a strong emphasis is placed on the teaching and learning of phonics. This is supported by a variety of other strategies designed to support each child's development as a fluent, independent reader who chooses to read for interest, information and enjoyment. Each class has a collection of books in addition to the school library. Children take home a book from their classroom that is an appropriate level for their reading ability and a book of their choice from the school library. Parents are encouraged to support their child's reading at home by listening to them read, reading with their children and reading to their children.

Early Reading in EYFS and KS1

Reading practice sessions three times a week

As part of Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, we teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:

are taught by a fully trained adult in small groups of approximately six children
use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids
are monitored by the class teacher

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

decoding
prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.

In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Towards the end of the Summer term all of our Year 1 children take part in the national Phonics screening test.

Reading in Years 2 - 6

From Year 2 upwards, reading is taught as a whole class and 1:1 reading as appropriate. Although tested on comprehension style questions in end of Key Stage Assessments, it is important that children are taught these skills through a variety of engaging activities and not just written comprehension style questions, to ensure a love for reading is developed.

Sessions focus on developing the following reading skills: inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing. These skills are not taught independently of each other, instead threaded through every lesson, in order to develop fluent readers.

We foster a love of reading at Riverbridge in a variety of ways, such as:

Our school library- Our school libraries on both bases offer our children high quality, diverse texts and a range of genres. Both libraries are forest themed and offer a calm environment for children to explore the vast amount of books we have on offer.
Book Corners- Every class has a book corner, with carefully chosen texts, suitable for the children's age group. Our PTA have continued to fund the development of these to ensure they are stocked with a wide range of diverse and exciting literature.
Year 6 Reading Ambassadors - A team of enthusiastic Year 6 children are chosen each year to be Reading Ambassadors. They play a huge role in promoting reading across the school, including organising World Book Day celebrations and reading with younger students.
Class Readers – In all year groups, children are read aloud to by their class teacher daily. These books are carefully chosen from our Reading Spine to ensure children are exposed to high-quality, diverse texts. They are displayed on classroom doors to encourage children to discuss their class reader with others.
'Read and Tell' - children in KS1 and KS2 are encouraged to regularly bring a book to share with their class and discuss their recommendations in weekly 'Read and Tell' sessions.
Author Visits and Workshops - we aim to inspire children with visits regular visits from authors and dramatical companies. Some recent visits include Sue Hendra (author of Supertato), Lucy Gray Moreland (author of The Phone Away Day) and a World Book Day workshop from West End in Schools.
Reading Records (Reception-Year 2) and Planners (KS2) - both are designed for adults and children to keep a log of their reading at home. Children are expected to read at least 3 times a week and have this recorded in their reading records or planners.

Reading is formally assessed at the end of Year 2 and end of Year 6 within the context of the End of Key Stage Assessments.