Reading 

Intent

We aim to provide children with a vocabulary-rich environment, high-quality texts and inspiring learning opportunities, which will help them to:

· Gain a life-long enjoyment of reading and books.

· Read accurately, fluently and with understanding;

· Apply a knowledge of structured synthetic phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed;

· Be able to read with expression, clarity and confidence;

· Develop a good linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar;

· Read and respond to a wide range of different types of texts;

· Develop a deeper level of emotional intelligence and empathy;

· Read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject.

Implementation

Through the delivery of our reading curriculum we ensure a consistent and robust teaching and learning of early reading and phonics in FS and KS1, so that pupils are able to read with increased speed and fluency and access the wider curriculum.

We follow Read Write Inc to teach children phonics and they read story books that are matched to their ability. The books allow for children to read fluenty as their phonic knowledge develops. All pupils have opportunities to develop their reading skills daily, and are encouraged to read at home with an adult.

We provide a text rich environment, in order to encourage a positive culture of reading throughout all classes and promote reading for pleasure. Children enjoy listening to challenging texts through Storytime. Through high quality teaching and learning experiences we will develop children’s skills and competence so that they are fluent readers who can read to learn. Whole class shared reading is used throughout the school to enable all children to share high-quality texts and develop skills in reading comprehension and fluency. Reading skills are continually developed through the wider curriculum.

Impact

All pupils will be able to read with accuracy, speed, confidence, fluency and understanding, ready to access the secondary school curriculum. All pupils will make at least good progress from their starting points. Pupils will develop a life-long enjoyment of reading and books.

We have invested heavily in quality texts for our reading scheme over the past year, and we have reorganised the scheme to ensure that our children are reading fully decodable books, that cover the same phonics phase as they are being taught in class. Your child should be able to apply sounds that they have been taught in class, to decode and read their reading scheme book fluently. This means they can focus on understanding the meaning of the words, predicting the plot of the story, and summarising what they have read. 

We have a beautiful library, with a large selection of fiction and non-fiction books. Our reading tree grows in our library (a stunning construction kindly made for us by the Men's Shed), and provides a comfortable and quiet space for children to sit in, whilst they enjoy sharing a story, or reading alone.

We can often be found buddy reading, where our children enjoy sharing stories with others from different year groups and classes. 

It is wonderful to see our families reading at home, as well as in school!

Writing

At Brooke, writing is very important, particularly writing with a purpose. All classes enjoy opportunities to write daily, about a variety of topics linked to subjects across the curriculum. 

To kickstart the writing process, teachers spark children's interests through stories, videos and pictures. Classes then have an opportunity to look at a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like!). We then teach different skills which will enable children to write a wide range of text types, from newspaper articles to persuasive texts. 

We are currently working on our presentation at the moment, across all subjects! If children are awarded a presentation certificate, their work also gets displayed on our presentation display in the hall!

KS2 Writing progression document...

KS1 Writing progression document...