Reading
Reading for Pleasure
At Bickerton Holy Trinity CE Primary School, we strive to encourage and foster a love of reading. We do this by sharing daily high quality books with our children, by reading to and with them, and by supporting our parents to make reading an enjoyable part of their daily routine. Our Children read widely across the curriculum, in all forms, including non-fiction books, magazines and newspapers and digital formats. Within our school, each classroom has a welcoming reading area filled with high-quality books for children to read and enjoy. In addition, our school library area is stocked with a range of age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction texts to support every ability and reading choice and these are regularly updated and refreshed.
Individual Reading Books
At Bickerton Holy Trinity CE Primary School, we use Read Write Inc book bag books to support children in their early stages of reading. These books are closely matched to the phonics stage of each individual child, allowing them to practise and embed what they are being taught in school. Children are also encouraged to take home books to be shared with an adult and read to them so that they can enjoy books of all different styles and genres. Once children have completed the Read Write Inc programme, they can then choose from a range of reading books to continue them on in their reading journey. Children are taught how to choose a reading book that is appropriate for them and allows them to continue to practise their reading books whilst not being too challenging. Reading book choices are monitored closely by teachers and teaching assistants and reading assessments are completed to assess children's accuracy where required.
Reading Fluency
Reading Fluency can be defined as “the ability to read connected text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically with little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading, such as decoding.” (Meyer & Felton, 1999). Without very regular reading practise, young children will struggle to apply their phonic knowledge with automaticity, and comprehension will suffer. Both word reading and comprehension need to be attended to in fairly equal measure, for young children, to enable them to read successfully and understand what they are reading.
Children at Bickerton Holy Trinity CE Primary School will learn to read with fluency, accuracy and confidence. By year 6, children will have a good understanding of texts structured in different ways in order to access the more complex books expected of them in the next stage of their education.
Our intent is that all readers will develop:
Stamina – able to read more text for a longer period whilst retaining understanding
Accuracy – children make fewer substitutions, omissions, mispronunciations and additions when reading
Enjoyment – pupils read more and are more willing to explore a wider range of literature
Confidence – pupils tackle texts with greater willingness and improved tenacity in teasing out meaning
Engagement – pupils offer more extended contributions in group discussions about challenging texts.
During our daily reading sessions, developing fluency is always a key focus. We use a range of techniques, approaches and activities including:
Surveying the text;
Modelled reading;
Choral reading;
Repeated reading;
Echo reading;
Paired or partner reading;
Readers' Theatre.
Reading Comprehension
At Bickerton Holy Trinity CE Primary School, we build reading comprehension skills by reading or listening to texts, highlighting relevant evidence and forming the answers to questions together. We follow Cracking Comprehension which is a step-by-step resource to improve the comprehension skills of children. It teaches children the skills and strategies they need to successfully explain their understanding of a wide range of texts, and offers ideas to extend their enjoyment of, and engagement with, reading. Use the files below to see how we strategically revisit a range of reading skills across our Cracking Comprehension sessions to strengthen our comprehension skills.
Useful Links
Reading, English Games for 7-11 Years - Topmarks
