Our vision for reading at Emmbrook Infant School
The importance of reading:
We value the importance of a high quality reading education, which helps pupils to read easily, fluently, and with good understanding. We want our pupils to develop good habits of reading widely for pleasure and for information, whilst developing their language, comprehension and quality of communication.
Reading matters as our children grow up in a world of print. Our pupils will enjoy and engage with planned daily story times, poems and rhymes nurturing a love of language and reading. Our reading curriculum has at its core a strong cultural capital enriching vocabularies through exposure to high quality texts, which are chosen to inspire young readers and are relevant to the needs and lives of our pupils. This text choice rationale ensures children are exposed to high quality reading materials across the three years of infant schooling, including traditional, non linear, archaic and modern. Children hear adults reading to them everyday. Books chosen reflect many of our school core values as themes or focus.
National Curriculum
The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
- read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
We follow the New Literacy framework guidelines 2021, the Early Years framework and the National Curriculum objectives for Year 1 and 2 when planning reading and language enrichment in the curriculum.
Reading in the Early Years
We teach to the EYFS Framework, which clearly lays out the aims for reading in the early years:
It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading.
Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together.
Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words.
Implementation
Phonics:
Children need to be proficient in developing phonetic knowledge to read texts and use a widening knowledge to comprehend. From the first days in EYFS we use a consistent whole school Synthetic Spelling Program (Read, Write, Inc) to teach decoding, retrieving, interpreting and analysis of texts. The Early Years Framework and National Curriculum plans progressively build on reading skills and knowledge year on year.
Children are taught in ability groups based on their phonic progress. Lessons include opportunities to revise phonemes learnt, blend in new words and alien words and read phonetically matched texts, which support their growing decoding skills. Pupils have daily opportunities to encode to spell and write phonemes in application. Groupings are fluid and assessment enables children to move between groups depending on their progress.
Reading is prioritised with daily timetabled group phonics instruction and this is supported by further weekly/daily opportunities to teach and apply reading skills using texts which are aligned to the SSP program of teaching.
The school highlights the rationale behind the selection of quality texts that are read to the children and phonetically decodable books support the children rehearse blending of phonemes that are met in class. Books go home that match their levels of developing phoneme knowledge.
Reading:
Leadership and management ensure regular and rigorous training is provided to ensure consistency of approach and fidelity to the school SSP. This support builds teams of expert teachers in reading across the school. Staff and SLT monitor progress across the school half termly and act on information from assessment.
- The school will tilt the curriculum offer so that disadvantaged and vulnerable children taste success in their reading and language acquisition alongside their peers.
- Reading scheme books that are closely phonetically matched to the child’s phonic levels are sent home for parents to read with their child. Books are read three times before changing so that comprehension and fluency are encouraged and developed.
- In the classroom book corners and displays, hold a selection of quality texts organised by genre or author focus. These book selections are changed each term and within term, allowing re reading of old favourites as well as the excitement of finding new titles to share.
- Class books are chosen to make sure that the right books support all children to thrive, whatever their background and to enable them to explore perspectives both similar and different to their own.
- The teaching of oracy across the school further supports growing vocabularies. This in turn supports the children when drawing meaning from text and in comprehending texts that are more complex.
- Reading is promoted across all areas of the curriculum to ensure all children have access to and develop an understanding of a wide variety of subject specific vocabulary
- Rigorous ongoing assessment allows pupil progress to be monitored so that they make term on term progress and pupils at risk of reading failure are supported to keep up, with planned extra teaching and individual or group interventions.
- Daily timetabled teaching of reading and independent reading opportunities allow pupils to increase in their reading accuracy and fluency so that that they can read an increasing number of words at a glance. Assessments half termly assess decoding skills, fluency and comprehension in reading.
- Links are made each term between reading and spelling through the systematic spelling program. Carefully selected phonic resources and texts support this planned progression.
Impact
All pupils leave the infant school as fluent and avid readers, with an increased knowledge and understanding of the phonetic code. They will pass the phonic screening checks in Year One (unless they have significant needs or disability) and will meet age-related expectation by the end of Key Stage One. These skills allow them to decode more texts independently and with a stronger understanding of what they have read.
Children will leave with a wider, more ambitious vocabulary, which they will use in conversation and in their writing. A strong exposure to a wide range of stimulating, high quality texts by a wide range of authors chosen to support and enhance the children’s cultural capital, will inspire them to continue reading independently for pleasure, as well as use reading to further support their learning, as well as being able to access everyday print in their everyday lives.