Intent

At Rockcliffe, we believe that the ability to read is fundamental to our children's success, enabling them to access the next stage of their education and beyond. Our curriculum has been designed to ensure that pupils have opportunities to develop a love of reading. We aim to ensure that pupils gain a thirst for reading a range of genres and participating in discussions about the books they read, exploring the language used by different authors and the impact the written words have on the reader. Our curriculum has also been designed to ensure that pupils not only read for pleasure but to use books to research and gather new knowledge to extend their understanding.

Implementation

Reading is an important part of our curriculum and is an integral part of all of our lessons. In Early Years, the new Early Years Framework (2021) provides statements leading to attainment of ELGs for comprehension and word reading, whilst in Years 1 to 4, we follow the National Curriculum, using summarised learning objectives as a more user-friendly language by which to share learning intentions with the children.

 We use the following strategies to teach reading:

Phonics: EYFS and KS1 use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) approach to teaching phonics. 'Keep Up' and 'Catch Up' groups are used to support children who fall behind, where necessary.

 Shared reading: A teacher reads and discusses a text with the whole class, demonstrating how to be a good reader. This typically takes place during the introduction to a lesson and is linked to the main focus/activities of the lesson.

Direct teaching: In Key Stages 1 and 2, direct teaching of skills takes place during English lessons, as part of a 'balanced reading and writing approach'; using carefully chosen novels and picture books that underpin units of literacy work, linked to the current cross-curricular theme. Pupils explore vocabulary, prediction, sequencing, making inferences and retrieving information. Activities are designed to suit all learning styles and provide support and challenge to all levels of ability. 

Drawing Club approach is used in EYFS. The approach benefits reading by immersing children in stories, which builds vocabulary and comprehension through a multi-sensory experience of drawing, talking and acting out new words. By making personal connections to texts and encouraging creative writing and storytelling, children develop a deeper understanding and confidence in narrative structure, character and plot. This approach also strengthens foundational literacy skills by using "secret codes" to connect mark-making with sounds, words and sentences.

Guided reading: About 6 children, grouped by reading ability, read aloud from the same text in turn, whilst the teacher listens in and draws out teaching points. Activities that show understanding may be completed. A typical session will be 20 minutes long. As part of the Little Wandle approach, Reception and Key Stage 1 pupils also engage in group Guided Reading sessions, which promote independent reading skills that are required to be a proficient reader. Guided reading texts (as part of the scheme) reinforce the sounds being taught that week. These are also shared as eBooks with parents. Key Stage 2 children read guided texts from the Scholastic Short Reads scheme - These texts are lexile levelled and matched to children's reading age. Older children may read their text away from the group and then focus on particular aspects of understanding during the group discussion.

Sustained reading: Children read by themselves for a short time. At Rockcliffe, we aim to set 15 minutes per day aside for quiet, focused reading. We believe that this helps children to become immersed in a book and develop the habit of reading for pleasure.

Story time: The teacher reads a story aloud to the whole class. This is timetabled to take place in every classes. Books are a mixture of those carefully chosen by the teacher to complement the current cross-curricular teaching theme and books from a selection voted for by the class across each week. Stories on key themes are also shared in assemblies and PSHE lessons.

Individual reading: Reading 1:1 with an adult (teacher, teaching assistant or volunteer) or alone, as it suggests. This is linked to...

Home-School Reading Scheme: The books that the children bring home to practise reading with parents/carers. Volunteers may be used productively to change reading books and hear children read. Children have a home-school diary that anyone who hears them read completes.

In addition to this, pupils explore a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts in their foundation subject lessons, which are based around age-appropriate texts linked to the topic being studied.

 We promote a love of Reading through:

• Library visits
• Virtual and in-person author events (Scholastic, Seven Stories and Northern Children's Book Festival) are used to introduce children to a range of authors and genres and promote reading for pleasure
• Classroom libraries provide access to a range of fiction and non-fiction.
• World Book Day and National Poetry Day are celebrated every year through a range of whole-school and class-based activities.

SEND: Interventions/support may be put in place to accelerate reading skills in the case of children who are identified as not achieving age-related outcomes. The nature of the intervention will be decided by the teacher and the SENCO.

Impact

Our children love books and are keen readers. They have a keen interest in discovering new authors, genres and series.

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. 

Phonics:

• The Early Years Baseline Assessment is used to assess children’s early progress towards Early Learning Goals
• Early Years children will be assessed using the EYFS Profile against the Word Reading ELG statements
• Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1
• Regular assessments (built into phonics programme) to ensure that pupils are making expected progres

Reading:

• Formal Reading Assessments
• The new Salford Sentence Reading Test (SSRT) is carried out with all children from Y2 to Y4, early each term. It provides three parallel forms and gives reading ages.
• The YARC Reading Test – Early Reading (age 4-7) is used for pupils in Reception and Year 1, as well as SEND children, whose reading age falls low or below the SSRT range, to obtain an in-depth, diagnostic assessment of a pupil’s reading and comprehension skills and to identify specific problems and inform appropriate interventions where necessary.
• The Early Years Baseline Assessment is used to assess children’s early progress towards Early Learning Goals.
• Early Years will be assessed using the Early Years against the Comprehension ELG statements.
• The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, administered in June, checks children’s ability to decode a mixture of real and nonsense words.      
• In Key Stage 1 and 2, termly summative teacher assessments: North Tyneside Assessment Grids (NTAGs) are used to assess children’s progress against National Curriculum objectives for reading (by year group).

SEND: Children who are identified as not achieving age-related outcomes and/or those on the SEN register may be assessed against the outcomes for the year group below.