OUR READING CURRICULUM AIMS

For children to;

• To read easily, fluently and effortlessly, with good understanding.
•  To develop the habit of reading widely and often, both for pleasure and information.
•  To develop a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of how the English language works for reading, writing and spoken language.
•  To appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.

APPROACH

We use the Read Write Inc approach to teach word reading through phonics across the school.

We teach:

• knowledge of the letters and their associated sounds (the alphabetic code)
• the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words (HFW)
• the ability to read words that do not follow the alphabetic code (tricky/yellow words)

If you would like to know more,  there are lots of videos on this page:  https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parents/

Comprehension / Talk for Reading

Pupils experience a range of activities in classes, groups or individually to develop:

• the ability to process text, drawing on knowledge of vocabulary, word meanings and grammar, and their own knowledge of the world.
• matching reading with what they already know, making links within and across texts.
• identifying themes - asking and answering questions.
• retrieving, inferring and deducing from texts.
• awareness of the author: how they have used a point of view, the language and/or types of words, how they have set out the text, what the context is.
• empathy and understanding – putting themselves ‘in someone else’s shoes’.

Fun Reading

As well as pupils hearing and enjoying a good book every day, we have regular cross curricular theme days, WOW days and longer projects for reading including:

• Specific reading focussed days such as World Book Day.
• ‘Author Weeks’ organised by the local authority ‘Whatever it takes’ (WIT) partnership, where a published author visits school and presents their work to our pupils.
• WIT also help us to run the Year 2 ‘Our Best Picture Book’ awards with votes cast by pupils and the Year 1 ‘Our Brilliant Book Club’.
• Visits to the local library and visits from the librarian.
• Supporting library activities such as story telling sessions and the summer reading challenge.
• School Book Fair week.
• The fun Reading Round About session where pupils choose a book from a choice and go somewhere different to hear it in a story session.

OUR READING SPINE

HOME READING

We encourage parents, siblings and close relatives to read with children. Pupils know that they are expected to read at home as often as they can. All pupils take a ‘Book Bag’ containing books and a reading diary to and from school each day. There will be a levelled book, a phonically decodable book – closely matched to the letter shapes and associated sounds children are learning in class and perhaps word lists and/or phoneme sheets.

Teachers will make comments in the reading diaries prompting parents about how to help their children.

Here are some tips

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/reading-tips/

CATHERINE INFANT SCHOOL READING PROVISION