Pilton Bluecoat ACADEMY

Vision for Reading

"The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go." 

 Dr.  Seuss

Vision

At Pilton Bluecoat Academy, we are continually striving to create ways that develop a lifelong love of reading for all of our pupils.  We expose pupils to a range of good quality literature from across all curriculum areas, in order to support the development of their interests, understanding and aspirations.

Intent

We believe reading opens up new worlds for children and gives them the opportunity to explore new ideas, visit new places, meet new characters and other cultures. Building up the children’s vocabulary gives them the word power they need to become successful speakers and writers as well as confident readers. Reading is a key life skill and we strive to embed a culture of reading into the core of what we do, providing opportunities for children to read both independently and aloud as well as allowing them the chance to discuss and recommend books they have read to their peers. Reading and quality literature is implicitly interwoven into our curriculum through the use of key texts to expose our children to various genres and famous authors and to enhance the variety of exciting topics that we teach. By the end of their time at primary school, all children should be able to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education.

To achieve this, we intend to encourage all pupils to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live; to establish an appreciation and love of reading; to gain knowledge across the curriculum; develop their comprehension skills.

Implementation 

We provide a ‘healthy literacy diet’ to children consisting of:                                               

Phonics and decoding (through specialised interventions) Decoding is embedded in classroom practice through reading sessions and decision spelling, where staff systematically teach learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them.                                                                                                

Reading at ‘just the right level’ Once children are confidently reading, they move on to the Accelerated Reader Programme in LKS2.  The school ensures all texts are accurately matched to pupil ability, as all books within AR are graded to ensure progression and challenge for all children.                                                                                                                    

Access to reading material ~ Books are carefully selected by teachers with the knowledge of how they link to other areas of the curriculum.  All classrooms have their own class reading areas with topic themed books, as well as our well-loved school library.  It is intended that these areas are further enhanced regularly.        

Comprehension strategies ~ All children take part in one Whole Class Reading session per week.  All teachers use these sessions to introduce pupils to a range of genres and to teach a range of techniques which enable children to comprehend the meaning of what they read. These sessions take place when children are familiar with the text.  Progression is established through the use of sequential learning steps. Teachers read with pupils regularly (at least 3 x 30 min sessions per week) in preparation for the comprehension lesson.  This is also when reading fluency and speed is a focus.   Any children not making the expected progress have 1:1 or small group intervention using bespoke packages which supports their acquisition of sight vocabulary. The lowest 20% of children receive daily reading opportunities.

Meaningful writing opportunities ~ Experiences are always sought by the teachers to ensure that the children become writers with a reader in mind and also read like a writer.  It is the intent of sharing powerful reading that drives standards in writing.

Marking and Feedback: Feedback and marking should be completed, where possible, within the lesson. All marking and feedback is given in line with our marking and feedback policy.

Summative Assessments are used termly with the results being entered into our tracking system which is called Curriculum Maestro. Teachers combine their week to week assessments with the summative test results ( e.g. past SATS papers and Curriculum Maestro tests) to determine whether a child is working within age-related expectations, above or below. These judgments, for the most part, are focused on the quality of the written outcomes pupils give after structured teaching within the agreed reading skills. If tests are used, care is taken to ensure that pupils are prepared appropriately for the test, and any barriers to accessing these are removed.

Teaching is monitored closely through a range of strategies including lesson observations, pupil voice activities and the analysis of data.  Pupil progress meetings also ensure progress is monitored and intervention is provided to enable pupils to be on track to meet year group expectations.

Impact 

Pupils enjoy reading regularly, for information and for enjoyment across a range of genres.

Children of all abilities will be able to overcome a challenge and succeed in all reading lessons

Parents will be clear about the age-related expectations for reading and have a clear understanding of how to support their child at home.

Pupils are able to talk about the work of a range of different authors. 

The % of pupils working at ARE within each year group will be at least in line with national averages.

The will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils

The % of pupils working at Greater Depth within each year group will be at least in line with national averages