Reading

At Allscott Meads, we provide purposeful learning opportunities to facilitate progress in reading across our academy. The enjoyment of books and a love of reading are fostered from the earliest stages in each pupil’s time at Allscott Meads. In addition to following the National Curriculum, our key aims lay the foundations for our well-sequenced reading curriculum.

The national curriculum for Reading aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• Develop the habit of Reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• Acquire a wide vocabulary, and an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for Reading

Through the effective implementation of the phonics programme, ‘Little Wandle’s Letters and Sounds’, we begin the teaching of phonics in the EYFS. This gives pupils the knowledge and confidence to independently attempt Reading and Writing from the earliest possible stages. We continue to use the Little Wandle. programme to deliver daily phonics to pupils in reception, year 1 and where necessary into year 2. Our pupils are taught in whole class groups and additional intervention is used to ensure children keep up with the recommended steps of the programme. Strong links are made between Reading and Writing from the early stages of ‘Little Wandle’. Fidelity to this scheme ensures that the teaching of Reading is consistent and effective. We have a designated Early Reading Lead who works in conjunction with our Reading Lead to ensure the quality of teaching and learning is rigorous. All progress is tracked, and any gaps in understanding are closed quickly by targeted teaching. All staff are trained to deliver Little Wandle, and they receive regular training updates to maintain high quality delivery. Additionally, the Reading Lead supports and mentors staff delivering the lessons daily through regular drop ins and team teaching.

Through the daily rigorous teaching of phonics pupils learn to effectively segment and blend, we then build on this by placing an emphasis on ensuring that pupils can decode texts selected to match their phonic ability so that they can utilise their strategies to decode and learn to comprehend what they are reading. We recognise the importance of pupils mastering this early reading stage, and we ensure that children are regularly exposed to additional as well as incidental phonics opportunities throughout the school day.

Guided Reading sessions are taught three times per week across our Reception and Key stage 1 classes. From Y2 and into KS2 our Reading sessions are taught through a whole class text, which is then followed by the children’s independent responses in their Reading Journal. This approach supports our pupil’s word reading, fluency, and decoding, as well as deepen their knowledge of the world around them. During these sessions, pupils are exposed to a wide range of age-appropriate genres, themes, and authors. High-quality books have been purposefully selected to immerse our pupils in a wealth of vocabulary, and where appropriate, they are linked to the learning taking place across the Curriculum theme.

Through equipping our pupils with the background knowledge necessary to access and make sense of the vocabulary they are reading we provide them with opportunities to take meaning from what they are reading. As the text is shared, teachers ask high-quality questions to support the pupils with developing their understanding as they are guided to read for meaning. High-quality book talk is an important aspect of all reading sessions. Lesson drop-ins take place to ensure that our high expectations are being upheld, to ensure pupils achieve their maximum potential.

We have invested in a set of ‘Little Wandle, Letters and Sounds,’ a validated scheme used in conjunction with books by Big Cat Collins. These books are consistent with each pupil’s developing phonic knowledge and are taken home daily by children in Reception and KS1. Through reading a text that is closely matched to their phonic ability, our pupils regularly experience success in reading. We recognise the importance of reading and re-reading as an imperative factor to achieving fluency and automaticity in our pupils as readers. Additionally, the pupils are encouraged to read widely and for pleasure by taking home a text of their choice to share with a family member.

In addition, where possible pupils read with an adult in their class. 1:1 reading time is valued by the pupils who enjoy sharing texts with the adults in class. As an academy, we identify pupils who need support and provide intervention in the most effective and efficient way possible. Our targeted lowest attaining 20% readers are heard read more frequently to ensure that gaps are closed, and all pupils achieve their maximum potential.

All teachers model and demonstrate reading daily and discuss how an effective reader uses strategies to make sense of the text, for example, by discussing the author’s intent, asking open ended questions as they read, confirming, and adjusting predictions considering new evidence, making links to their own experiences to draw inferences, and so on. Through high-quality story sessions, we provide opportunities for pupils to share the enjoyment of listening to a book being read to them whilst further developing their thoughts about a broad range of books. In addition to this approach, time set aside to ‘Drop Everything and Read’, for example immediately after lunch, makes reading opportunities high value and regular.

Once pupils have progressed through the ‘Little Wandle’. programme, they move to our colour book banded system to support reading choices at the appropriate age and stage. We regularly review the books pupils take home to promote an ambitious culture of improvement and progress. We encourage parents and carers to read with their child every night and ask questions to strengthen their child’s understanding of the text. All pupils have a reading diary, and parents/carers are requested to make a comment to help support their child’s reading. Children are also encouraged to respond regularly in their Reading Diaries. To support this, we provide a range of open-ended questioning prompts which are kept in the inside cover of their diary, for the pupils to answer. In Year 2 and KS2 we expect children to read 4 times per week, answering at least one of the questions each time.

We have many incentives to encourage pupils to foster their love for reading. Each week, we celebrate ‘Reader of the Week’ in our celebration assembly. The winner from each class receives a book-mark. Our reading curriculum is enhanced through World Book Day, author visits and a range of visits to enrich and complement pupil’s learning. As a result of our Trust links with academy schools, we have access to a range of high-quality texts readily available for pupils to access. We also engage in profile raising events that enhance our community approach to reading, such as the ‘Get Caught Reading’ incentive and Share a Story opportunities as the end of the school day in the hall. Book Fairs are held at intervals throughout the year to encourage children to engage with books and all money made is used to help replenish our stock of books in school. To further enhance our reading offer we hold sponsorship events to raise funds for additional texts to broaden and enrich our reading resources.

We hold parent information sessions in early Reading for Reception Parents/ Carers, phonics for EYFS and Year 1 parents, and SATS for year 2 and year 6 parents so that they fully understand the age-related expectations and how best to support their child. Additionally, we invite reception parents to our ‘Starbooks’ story time session after their child’s class assembly. This is an opportunity for Parents/ Carers to come and share a story with their child in school. These sessions are always well attended by parents/carers who often comment on how helpful the sessions have been.

 

Writing

In addition to following the national curriculum, our key aims lay the foundations for our well-sequenced, progressive writing curriculum. At Allscott Meads, we provide purposeful learning opportunities to facilitate progress in writing across our academy. The purpose of writing is fostered from the earliest stages in each pupil’s time at Allscott Meads Primary School.

The National Curriculum for Writing aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Effective transcription through knowing Spelling (phonics) and learning handwriting
• Effective composition by forming, articulating and communicating ideas and then organising them coherently for a reader
• Enhance their vocabulary
• Control speaking and writing consciously to standard English.
• Have a structure for Writing through punctuation and grammatical features in English

Through the effective implementation of the single systematic synthetic phonics programme ‘Little Wandle,’ provides our pupils the knowledge and confidence to independently attempt Reading and Writing from the earliest possible stages. There are many opportunities for our pupils in early EYFS to build their gross and fine motor skills well before the writing process begins. As they develop these skills into reception and key stage 1, we continue to teach phonics daily using the ‘Little Wandl’. programme. Pupils are taught in small sized ability groups where they participate in speaking, listening, reading, and spelling activities that match their current stage. Strong links are made between reading and writing and fidelity to one scheme ensures that the teaching of reading is consistent and effective. We have a designated writing lead who oversees the quality of teaching writing, tracks progress, and ensures that targeted interventions are delivered to rapidly close any gaps. All staff are trained to deliver ‘Little Wandle,’ and they receive regular training updates to maintain high quality delivery. Additionally, the writing lead supports and mentors staff delivering the lessons daily through regular drop-ins and team teaching.

Through teaching pupils to effectively link their reading with spelling at an early age, we then develop stamina in Writing through shared text level, word level and sentence level focused build up to writing. We recognise the importance of pupils mastering this early writing stage, and ensure pupils are regularly exposed to opportunities to write.

Further, opportunities to write occur daily in KS1 and KS2 classes. As children focus on developing their knowledge and skills for writing, they complete a two-to-three-week block focussing on a particular genre. This focus on vocabulary and sentence development enables the children to develop their writing for different purposes, culminating in an extended independent piece of writing at least twice each half term. These two pieces of independent Writing are then assessed by the class teacher to identify gaps and move the learning on. At Allscott Meads Primary we ensure that a range of writing genres are taught to enable pupils to write with confidence, accuracy and clarity. Over the course of the year, we would expect to see 12 assessed pieces of Writing for each child. These will be from across the range of genres and all assessments will be recorded on our tracking sheet on the inside front cover of their English book.

At Allscott Meads Primary, we identify pupils who need support and provide intervention in the most effective and efficient way possible. We deliver intervention writing groups to ensure that all pupils are making progress. Our targeted bottom 20% writers are supported through read, write inc. in key stage 2. Targets are set based on previous key stage data to ensure progress is linear and that staff are aware of the expectations for each pupil. Interventions are put in place for the top 20% to reach working at greater depth.

We have many incentives to encourage pupils to continue to make progress in their writing.  Pupil’s targets are shared with them at the start of the academic year, and they are part of the levelling process after each focus genre.

Handwriting Incentives- Pupils who write consistently in our cursive script in Y2 are awarded with a silver pencil, In Years 3 and 4, a pen licence is attained for the consistent formation and presentation of writing. In Year 5 all children are provided with a pen, consistent formation and high-quality presentation in this year group is rewarded with a gold pen. For more information, please see our whole School Handwriting Policy.

We hold parent information sessions SATS for year 2 and year 6 parents so that they fully understand the age-related expectations and how best to support their child.