Roberts Primary School

Curriculum English

Reading

Intent

At Roberts, we aim for children to be able to:

Read easily, fluently and with good understanding
Choose to read widely and often, both for pleasure and to learn from their reading
Acquire a deep and broad vocabulary
Appreciate a range of texts
Use their reading to inform their writing
Take part in discussions which deepen understanding, help them to learn and shape their opinions
Understand what they have read by reading strategically

At Roberts we intend for every child to become a fluent, confident reader. We believe that with the right teaching and the right texts, every child can become a reader.

Key Components of our Reading Curriculum

Phonics
Daily Read Aloud
Reading Comprehension
Fluency
Explicit and Incidental teaching of vocabulary
Quality texts

How does reading teach British Values?

The British Values are:

Democracy
The rule of law
Individual liberty
Mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs

At Roberts, the texts that make up the reading curriculum provide opportunities to teach themes of tolerance, mutual respect and democracy. For example, in texts such as ‘Floodland’ children explore the concept of democracy, ‘Wild Robot’ explores themes including mutual respect whilst ‘Fox Girl and the White Gazelle’ and ‘Front Desk’ spark important conversations regarding tolerance, discrimination and diversity.

Furthermore, non-fiction texts have been carefully mapped to teach children about the British Values. For example, the rule of law is explored when children study a non-fiction text about Crime and Punishment whilst individual liberty is explored through texts such as ‘How to Change the World’.

Texts are also mapped so that children explore other cultures and use their reading as a basis for discussion about diversity, tolerance and discrimination.

Implementation

Early Reading

At Roberts we know that it is essential that children learn to read accurately and automatically with appropriate fluency. Systematic, synthetic phonics is key to this. Therefore, Roberts use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised to teach early reading. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code and develop the skills of segmenting, blending and phoneme manipulation.

Phonics

We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

In Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.

Children in Year 1 review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Reading Practice

Children are then taught to apply their phonics knowledge and skills during reading practice sessions. There are three reading practice sessions a week. These sessions are delivered to small groups of children by full trained adults. The Little Wandle Assessment Tracker is used alongside teacher assessment to select texts which are appropriately matched to children’s current phonics attainment.

The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

o decoding

o prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression

o comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

At the end of each week, children take home the book they have practised with to read to an adult at home.

As well as word reading, language comprehension is also taught. Children are read to daily by an adult and participate in book talk conversations, discussing their likes, dislikes, puzzles and predictions. In Year 2 children review Phase 5 content and then progress to the Little Wandle Fluency programme.

For information about how to support children’s phonics at home, visit the Little Wandle website:

https://www.littlewandle.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Reading in Key Stage 2

In Key Stage 2 children have daily reading lessons. The teaching of reading is based upon research and evidence informed practice into the teaching of comprehension, fluency and vocabulary.

Children are generally taught as a whole class; however, teachers will use their assessment for learning to teach in groups and 1-1 as necessary.

In Key Stage 2, comprehension strategies are taught so that children can read strategically. Children also engage in discussions about their reading. They are taught to think deeply about their reading and engage in discussions with their peers and adults about what they have read.

The reading curriculum has been planned to ensure that there are a variety of representations in the literature that children read, as well as a balance of poetry, non-fiction and fiction. Furthermore, non-fiction texts have been selected to develop children’s background knowledge, deepen their understanding of fiction texts and develop their knowledge of how expository texts are structured. Texts are deliberately challenging so that they are worthy of deep discussion and investigation and shape children as readers and citizens.

Reading Spine

Children at Roberts are read aloud to daily. Research shows that daily read-aloud sessions have a huge impact on children’s language development, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Listening to stories exposes pupils to rich and varied language they might not yet encounter in their own independent reading. It also helps them hear how fluent, expressive reading sounds, which they can then model in their own voices. We also know that children and adults love sharing and listening to stories.

The texts that we read aloud to children are mapped to ensure that we share the finest literature with our children.

Nursery Reading Spine

Burglar Bill	Whatever Next!	Rosie’s Walk	Dear Zoo	You Choose	The Train Ride	Farmer Duck
Shark in the Park	Shhhh!	Handa’s Surprise	Hair McClary	Brown Bear, Brown Bear	Each Peach Pear Plum	Jasper’s Beanstalk
The Gruffalo	Peace at Last	Dear Greenpeace

Reception Reading Spine

The Jolly Postman	Pumpkin Soup	Sweep	Along Came a Different	Luna Loves Art	I Don’t Want Curly Hair	Solomon Crocodile
Here We Are	Tad	Anansi and the Golden Pot	The Emperor’s Egg	The Best Diwali Ever	Martha Maps it Out	Stuck
Elmer	The Tiger Who Came to Tea	Clean Up!	The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch	Lost and Found	The Worrysaurus	The Bumblebear
Owl Babies	The Squirrels Who Squabbled	Mr Wolf’s Pancakes	The Rainbow Fish	Chicken Clicking	Aliens Love Underpants	The Odd Egg
Giraffes Can’t Dance	The Same but Different Too	Tadpole’s Promise	Not Now, Bernard	This Zoo is not for you	The Bog Baby	Oi Frog!

Year 1 Reading Spine

The Wild	The Big Book of Why	All Are Welcome	The Day the Crayons Quit	Do You Love Bugs	An Engineer Like Me	Tadpole’s Promise
A Cautionary Tale of Jim	Good Little Wolf	Little Red	The Last Wolf	Grandma Bird	Mixed	The Colour Monster
Beegu	We’re All Wonders	The Most Megnificent Thing	The Secret Garden	Meerkat Mail	Betsy Buglove Saves the Bees	Look Up!
Mrs Noah’s Pockets	Cinnamon	Pattan’s Pumpkin	Beautiful Oops	The King Who Banned the Dark	The Storm Whale	The Thing
The Worrying Worries	The Truth Pixie	The Seasaw	On Sudden Hill	The Lion Inside	Can I Build Another Me	Ruby’s Worry

Year 2 Reading Spine

The Giving Tree	Yours Sincerely, Giraffe	The Hodgeheg	The Griffin Gate	Einstein the Penguin	The Thing at 52	Fantastical about Frogs
India Incredible India	The Great Fire of London	Ossiri and the Bala Mengro	Counting on Katherine	Emperor of the Ice	Frontiers of Space	Pandora and the Story Forge
The Midnight Panther	The Rainbow Bear	Lila and the Secret of Rain	After the Fall	The Barnabus Project	The Night Gardener	The Emerald Forest
Factopia	The Egyptian Cinderella	Everything Under the Sun	Troll Stinks	Once Upon a Raindrop	The Big Book of the UK	Gorilla
Darwin’s Super Pooping Worm Spectacular	The Rhythm of the Rain	Traction Man	Aaron Slater Illustrator	Rain Before Rainbows	Leaf	It’s a No Money Day
The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish	How to Help Hedgehogs and Protect a Polar Bear	Until I Met Dudley	The Proudest Blue	The Promise	There’s a Rang-tan in my bedroom

Key Stage 2 Reading Spine

Autumn 1

Autumn 2

Spring 1

Spring 2

Summer 1

Summer 2

Year 3

The Iron Man

The Wild Robot

Charlotte’s Web

Owen and the Soldier

Race to the Frozen North

The Girl who Stole an Elephant

The Abominables

Year 4

Podkin One Ear

Journey to Jo’Burg

Beetle Boy

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Odysseus (x 1 story)

Blackberry Blue (x1 story)

The Eye of the Wolf

Year 5

Floodland

The Nowhere Emporium

Fox Girl and the White Gazelle

Wolf Brother

Beowulf

Cloud Busting

The Umbrella Mouse

Year 6

When the Sky Falls

The Shark Caller

Skellig

Front Desk

Holes

The Final Year

Clockwork

Impact

Reading will be assessed by:

NFER Termly Assessments. Results are inputted and are tracked by the leadership team, analysed and explored further during Pupil Progress Meetings and used to set intervention groups and targets.
Dibels Oral Reading Fluency Assessments
Herts for Learning Fluency Project analysis
Little Wandle Assessments
Phonics Screen Check Results
Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 SATs
Pupil voice and surveys
Quality Assurance of reading by English Lead during data entry periods

Reading at Home

We have different books that will come home during your child’s time at Roberts.

Decodeables

These are the Little Wandle Phonics books. They are matched to where children are currently working at in phonics. Children read the book with an adult three times in school and then will bring the book home to read to an adult. Children should be able to read with a high degree of accuracy and fluency.

These books are changed weekly.

Fluency Books

When children have completed the Little Wandle Phonics programme, they move on to the Little Wandle Fluency programme. The aim of these books is to develop children’s fluency and reading stamina. The books offer more of a challenge than the phonics books and are organised into chapters. Children read the book with an adult three times in school and then will bring the book home to read to an adult.

These books are changed fortnightly.

Book Banded Library Books

Once children have completed the fluency books, they will be able to choose a book from the library. Books are banded so that teachers can guide children to choose from a selection which they know is appropriate for the child’s age and currently reading attainment. There are a range of books to choose from including fiction, non-fiction, short stories, graphic novels and poetry. Children will not move through the coloured bands quickly as the focus is on depth and breadth: we want children to read a wide range of books with a high degree of accuracy before moving on to the next book band.

Brown = Year 3

Silver = Year 4

Navy = Year 5

Burgundy = Year 6

As a guide, in Years 3 and 4, children will keep a book for two weeks. In Years 5 and 6 children will keep a book for 3 weeks. Children read aloud their book a minimum of once a week to an adult in school.

Libraries and Reading for Pleasure