Reading at Barley Lane Primary School

Phonics and Early Reading

At Barley Lane the teaching of reading is engaging and purposeful for all pupils.  It is a collaborative act between teacher and pupils, where discussion is encouraged and highly valued, with an emphasis on child led talk and interaction. We want children to recognise the pleasure they can get from their reading, as well as an understanding that reading allows them to discover new knowledge in all areas of life. This is through the application of reading in all subject areas. 

Intent

To ensure phonic teaching and learning is engaging and interactive throughout the day and applied across all subject areas demonstrating that the skill of reading can be applied to all walks of life.  Children will be able to recognise taught phonemes and high frequency and apply in their reading and writing with ease making the transition between phases fluid.  Children will become confident readers and subsequently confident writers.

Implementation

Phonics is taught as explicit subject in the first instance where children follow the Letters and Sounds phonics programme as they progress through the phonetic phases. Teaching is adapted to make the learning more exciting and interactive for the children. Concrete objects are often used as well as outdoor space being utilised wherever possible. Children are encouraged to write the grapheme in a variety of ways ready to be applied in a series of words and later a meaningful sentence. Phonemes are constantly on display in all classrooms for easy access of language application. Weekly spellings are based around the phonics taught as well as high frequency words. Reading record books also support phonics learning by being available for reference in their books, again demonstrating the importance of phonics teaching during early reading.  Throughout the day children are exposed to rich vocabulary acquired through speech, reading, maths or curriculum subjects.

Teachers regularly have meetings to discuss and agree on key skills to be taught. Areas of development and areas needing to be revisited are also monitored.

Impact

Children are being assessed through on-going daily formative assessment against each phoneme taught. This learning is then reinforced through spelling tests, application of words learnt through their writing and reading. When a child is confident with a particular phase of phonic sounds, they are then quickly moved to the next phase to avoid demotivation of the child’s learning.

Termly summative assessments are carried out by the teacher which reinforces the ongoing formative assessment through the course of the term.

Reading (KS1 and KS2)

Intent

The teaching of reading is interactive and purposeful for all pupils across all subject areas.  It is a collaborative act between teacher and pupils, where discussion is encouraged and highly valued, with an emphasis on child led talk and interaction. By the time children leave, we want them to be competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including poetry, and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader. We want children to recognise the pleasure they can get from their reading, as well as an understanding that reading allows them to discover new knowledge, revisit prior knowledge and understand more about what they learn, fuelling their imagination for ideas to use in their own work.

Implementation

The pleasure derived from reading engaging, quality texts should be the priority within a reading session. However, key reading skills need to be taught. Most notably the core skills of: summarising, clarifying, questioning and predicting. Other skills such as being able to discuss an author’s use of language and structure, making comparisons within and across texts, identifying and commenting upon literary themes, for example, must also be taught through a range of challenging reading material, which covers a range of text types. Within our school this is done through a variety of different teaching strategies including use of drama, written work, exploration of character, theme and moral dilemma.

In Key Stage 1 teachers ensure that children are exposed to vocabulary rich, high quality texts which are engaging for children. The fundamental reading skills of questioning, predicting, inferring, clarifying and summarising need to be taught well.

Children need to be able to discuss and appreciate the use of language used within texts and make comparisons. In particular compare the characters, plot and setting of particular texts. Children will be challenged through complex questioning where it is necessary, in order for them to support their thinking by inferring and making links to other texts and/or relative real-life experiences.

In Key Stage two, Reading is taught through 5 x 25 minute sessions a week which are taught explicitly or in conjunction with extended writing. Year groups plan together to agree on these key skills in relation to the text that is being taught. Weekly planning is then adapted by individual class teachers to meet the needs of their own classes in terms of EAL and SEN needs.

Year groups plan together to discuss and agree on key skills to be taught explicitly or in conjunction with extended writing. Weekly planning is then adapted by individual class teachers to meet the needs of their own classes.

Alongside curriculum reading/writing sessions, reading is promoted widely throughout the school. This is done through:

• Providing independent reading for pleasure time for children
• Regular use of the library which has a wide selection of all types of books Children take out one book a week/ every fortnight
• Exposure to Author of the Month
• Each classroom having a wide selection of books, which children can take home once a week. This offers children opportunities to apply their reading skills learnt from curriculum lessons to their own independent reading.
• Each classroom having a stimulating and inviting reading area, which is comfortable for children to read, filed with age appropriate/ more challenging books.
• Author/ poet visits
• Reading Challenges
• National Poetry Day
• World Book Day
• Displays which celebrate authors, children’s favourite books
• A range of trips organised which complement children’s learning and encourage them to read more about a subject.

Impact

Formative assessment is conducted through monitoring of recorded work in reading journals, through note making on the four key reading skills and other pertinent observations in the class-reading folder, quality of the discussion in the lesson and through half termly tests which are designed to support teacher judgements. Reading skills can also be assessed through both the English and Foundation books also as reading encompasses all other subjects. As well as end of Key Stage tests in Year 6 and Year 2 summative assessments (based on the TAFs) is carried out by teachers to assess the children’s learning.

Phonics