Learning » Curriculum » Subjects » English
Reading
Here at Pool, we want children to establish an appreciation and love of reading at all stages of their learning journey. We are committed to sharing high quality and vocabulary rich texts across the curriculum so that children may develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live.
Through our cornerstone Christian values, we aim to:
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Develop compassionate learners who read a wide variety of texts to learn about the lives and experiences of others. Pupils will develop an understanding of different families, religions, views and disabilities. |
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Develop perseverance as pupils begin their reading journey in the Early Years. As pupils move through school, we encourage pupils to show perseverance as they read more complex texts and use their comprehension skills to answer questions about what they have read. |
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Develop perseverance as pupils begin their reading journey in the Early Years. As pupils move through school, we encourage pupils to show perseverance as they read more complex texts and use their comprehension skills to answer questions about what they have read. |
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Through reading we aim for our pupils to gain respect for people of different faiths, disabilities and ethnicities. Our reading curriculum and the range of books offered in our libraries, aims to be diverse to enable our pupils to develop respect for others. |
Writing
At Pool we strive to inspire our children develop into articulate and imaginative writers, who are well-equipped with the basic skills to flourish into life-long learners. We aim to ensure all of our children develop a genuine love of spoken language and the written word through a text-based approach. In line with our reading ethos, we expose the children to a diverse range of genres, cultures and authors, with their independent writing mirroring this. Careful links are made across the curriculum to ensure that children’s English learning is relevant and meaningful: where possible linking our reading, writing and to the topic that we are covering.
Through our cornerstone Christian values, we aim to:
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Provide pupils with the skills to write texts that convey compassion and understanding for others. This is demonstrated through a wide range of genres that includes narratives, poetry, newspaper reports, recounts, balanced arguments and biographies. |
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Support pupils in developing perseverance when writing, especially when they are finding an aspect of writing difficult. Through effective teaching and feedback, pupils are guided through the writing process and are encouraged to show perseverance to meet their writing target. Children are challenged and encouraged to take risks and view mistakes as a positive part of the learning process. |
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Expose children to high quality texts that model excellent writing practises across a broad range of genres. Encourage pupils to share their knowledge and understanding through a range of writing genres with coherence and consistency. |
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Foster pupils respect for others when sharing their writing work and ideas. Teachers model how to listen carefully and respond respectfully when writing is read out aloud. |
Our pupils have many opportunities for reading in school. These include: shared reading in the daily literacy session, guided reading with the teacher, group reading with their peers and individual reading.
We adopt the Twinkl Phonics programme from Reception onwards and the No-Nonsense Spelling programme from Y3 onwards.
Children have opportunities to read frequently during whole class literacy lessons. This may involve reading together as a class from the board or reading/sharing a range of texts.
Guided reading
Individual Reading
In Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and KS1, children frequently read independently to an adult. In KS2, children who need more individual support will receive help on a one to one or small group basis.
In Reception and KS1, pupils start by reading picture books and then books which correspond to the Phonics Level they are currently working at. Our Library in KS2 is full of current fiction and non-fiction texts to inspire reading for pleasure!
Reading at Home
Enjoyment and interest is our main aim for your child’s reading; if pupils enjoy reading and being read to it really does make a difference to the progress they make. We emphasise the need for parents to take an active role in their child’s education, supporting the developing reader and encouraging open lines of communication through reading records.At the front of every child’s Reading Record there is a list of reading targets that your child is working on in school. We hope that the targets provided enable parents and carers to support their child further with their reading at home. Please feel free to tick or highlight the targets that you have worked on with your child or you feel your child has achieved. We will use our own recording system in school to monitor your child’s reading progress.
To develop Reading at our school we have a fantastic a group of pupils who have taken on the role as ‘Reading Ambassadors’.
The role of the ambassador includes:
- Encouraging others to develop a love for reading
- Sharing book reviews and recommendations
- Helping with reading events across the school
- Helping create displays to promote reading within school
The Reading ambassadors meet regularly to talk about what we can do to develop a love for Reading ethos in school.
We have recently purchased a new reading scheme for Early Years and Key Stage One. The books have been carefully selected to support our teaching of phonics and reading in school. We look forward to sharing the new books with our pupils. Your support in encouraging your child/ren to take care of and respect the books is greatly appreciated.
School Library Service Visit
Pupils in KS1 and KS2 enjoy 100s of books on loan from the Schools’ Library Service. Pupils are invited to make suggestions of titles, authors and genres and our Reading Ambassadors accompany Mrs Fox and Mrs Furnival to choose the books, which we keep for a year and then exchange for new texts!
Year 3,5 and 6 enjoyed a brilliant visit from the author Liz Flanagan!
Please find our updated Handwriting Policy attached below that highlights the pre- cursive style that is taught from Reception leading to cursive in Year 2 and into Key Stage 2.
We have updated and adapted our Writing assessment grids to provide clear and concise objectives to help improve teaching and assessment.
Please see below for resources and information linked to No Nonsense Spelling