English - Reading | St Peter's Church of England Aided Junior School

Our Vision for Reading

‘English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know.’

(National Curriculum)

At St. Peters, we strive for every child to develop the fundamental skills to read widely for information and for pleasure. We believe that fostering a love and appreciation of reading will open the door to a world of wonder - with storytelling memories and book adventures that will stay with our children for the rest of their lives. We are fully committed to supporting every child to become an age-related reader by the time they leave our school.

Reading is at the heart of our school development priorities and aspirations. As we seek to promote ‘life in all its fullness’ and enable our children to learn for life, our reading curriculum and wider offer equips our children to:

experience reading 'in all its fullness'
select texts and enjoy reading for pleasure
develop vital skills, enabling fluency, accuracy and confidence
broaden their knowledge of both themselves and the wider world
acquire knowledge across the curriculum, allowing them to build on what they already know.

Our Reading Curriculum

“Reading is an adventure. It lets you explore the thoughts, feelings and worlds of others,

and helps you learn that they are just like you.”

(Peter Bunzl - children's author)

Through our reading curriculum and wider offer, pupils are encouraged, challenged and inspired to read broadly across a range of genres, authors, fiction and non-fiction texts, helping them to develop a sense of self.

This is achieved through a variety of approaches, including:

rich texts that drive and stimulate our writing curriculum
parallel texts, accessed and enjoyed in our whole class reading lessons
promotion of age-appropriate books, displayed and celebrated throughout the school
school librarian, offering knowledge, support and challenge with book choices
passionate staff, who model and inspire a love of reading.

For an overview of of our text drivers, please click on the link below.

Whole School Text Drivers

We strive to ensure that every child can read fluently and confidently by the time they leave our school. Our reading activities build upon children's KS1 experience and phonics are taught where necessary. The reading schemes we use support children as they develop their abilities. These ensure a structured progression in reading. Fundamental teaching of reading, based on rich and varied texts is a priority to ensure children read for deeper meaning.

Reading Learning Journey

Through our reading curriculum, children are exposed to a wide range of texts that link to their curriculum projects, where possible. Please click on the document above for further information. Our text drivers include novels, non-fiction books and a variety of extracts that enable our children to learn, practise and develop their skills across the reading domains.

The reading domains are:

Comprehension
Inference
Language for Effect
Themes and Conventions

Each reading lesson follows a similar journey:

Discussion around new vocabulary that children will encounter in the lesson
Reading a robust amount of text, which could involving a number of different strategies:
- Reading To Think Aloud (Teacher reads aloud, modelling and demonstrating/annotating the thought processes of comprehension)
- Choral Reading (Reading in unison with a small group or whole class)
- Round Robin Reading (Reading around the class where pupils read aloud one after the other)
- Teacher Reading (Teachers model reading aloud with expression and appropriate prosody)
- Paired Reading (One pupil reads text aloud while the other follows silently. Pupils switch roles regularly)
Class discussion around the domain being explored within the lesson, and how it applies to the text that has just been read
If necessary, there is an opportunity for the teacher to model the required response
Pupils to complete an activity based on the reading completed in the lesson

Please click on the document below for further information about our curriculum coverage and progression across the reading domains (Hampshire phase expectations).