Our Approach to Reading
At Ray Lodge Primary school our aim is for children to become confident and independent readers who gain both pleasure and insight from the reading activities and texts they engage with. Reading is an essential skill for participation in all areas of life.
We recognise the value of teachers reading aloud to children, in order to improve their grasp of story language, to enthuse them with a love of books and inspire them as writers. Therefore from Nursery to Year 6 texts are shared and chosen carefully to inspire and motivate children to want to read. The texts may also link into the theme that the class are undertaking or could be used to deal with an issue or promote discussion. The texts and discussions lead to the children's thinking being challenged and develops their ability to comprehend and justify.
Key Stage 1
Reading is taught using objectives from The National Curriculum, and targets from the school’s Guided Reading target booklet.
Phonics is taught daily in the Early Years and Key Stage 1 as well as in small in groups in Years 3 and 4 (for new joiners to the school), highlighting the importance for children to have attained the ability to recognise and use phoneme and grapheme correspondence by the end of Key Stage 1 if they are to obtain competency in reading. Children are grouped according to their ability in phonics and groups are set at the correct level following Letters and Sounds in KS1 and Years 3 and 4.
Grouped Reciprocal Reading occurs daily in Key Stage 1, children are grouped according to their reading ability and each group reads with their teacher once a week. Guided Reading provides an opportunity for teachers to help children to develop their reading and comprehension skills. Children who are working below age-related expectations read individually with the class teacher within the Guided Reading session until their comprehension skills are developed to enable a dialogic approach to reading.
Key Stage 2
Reciprocal reading occurs daily in Key Stage 2. Children are mixed ability grouped and read a range of exciting and challenging materials. Children lead their learning and discussions during the reciprocal reading sessions having spent time contemplating the text and raising 'big questions'. Children also read individually with adults weekly too.
Individual reading occurs at least once a week for every child from the Early Years Foundation stage through Key Stage 1 and lower Key Stage 2 and where necessary into upper Key Stage 2. The class teacher will listen to every child read, comment on their progress via their home reading record and set a new target which parents can help their child to work towards.
The school has a well equipped library with a librarian from the Redbridge Library Service.
Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity in which pupilss become the teacher in small group reading sessions. Teachers model, then help pupils learn to guide group discussions using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting. Once pupils have learned the strategies, they take turns assuming the role of teacher in leading a dialogue about what has been read.
Why use reciprocal teaching?
- It encourages pupils to think about their own thought process during reading.
- It helps pupils learn to be actively involved and monitor their comprehension as they read.
- It teaches pupils to ask questions during reading and helps make the text more comprehensible.