Reading
Reading is at the heart of our English curriculum at the Halberton & Uplowman Federation. We appreciate that, without reading, children are without access to many other areas of learning. To promote engagement in reading, we aim to develop a passion for reading across the school through a range of texts which are both challenging and inspiring. Children’s skills are developed from the early decoding stages through to more detailed comprehension skills taught via a range of methods which includes individual, group and whole class reading sessions.
We aim to teach the children the skills to enable them to read well but we also aim to instil in them a love of reading and books.
In EYFS, we focus on the development of children’s speech and language skills and in developing their language and vocabulary through games, songs, stories and rhymes and through the sharing of high-quality books. Children are then introduced to phonics through the structured program of Read Write Inc. When children enter KS1, phonics continues and a greater emphasis is placed on group and whole class reading sessions, from a range of authors and with links to the wider curriculum being made. This continues into KS2, with children being encouraged to become more independent readers. Group and whole class guided reading are continued with links to the wider curriculum. A focus on vocabulary development, the development of specific reading skills and immersion in a wide range of texts further develop a contextual knowledge and understanding.
We aim to ensure that the books children take home are matched to their current reading level. Children in Foundation Stage and Year 1 will usually have books linked to where they are on the RWI phonics programme, while children in Y2 and above would usually read books within the reading range suggested by our use of the Accelerated Reader programme.
We also aim for children to foster a real joy in reading and enable them to have access to high quality, up-to-date texts that will make them want to read.
Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement