Reading

Reading is dreaming with your eyes wide open

At Higher Openshaw, we believe that teaching reading should be at the very heart of the curriculum. Throughout a child’s journey in our school they will learn through, and from, a range of high quality texts aimed to enhance their learning experience. We are truly passionate about ensuring the building blocks of reading are in place as soon as possible and that rigorous provisions are in place to ensure no one slips through the net. Reading is an entitlement of all and something that opens up new worlds for children- we endeavour every day to make this possible for all of our pupils.

Reading at Key Stage One:

In Year One and Two, phonics, taught through the Read, Write, Inc program is taught daily and is regularly monitored to ensure that each child’s attainment level is matched to their provision. At this stage, the children progress with their word-reading skills – both phonic decoding skills and the quick recognition of ‘common exception words’ to enhance levels of fluency, expression and reading stamina.

Read more about our phonics provision here.

Learners are also supported to develop key comprehension skills which include predicting, understanding vocabulary choices, retrieving information, summarising, making inferences and using evidence from the text to justify their responses through the use of CLIMB sheets. An example of one of our CLIMB sheets is available below.

We use V.I.P.E.R.S Vocabulary, Inference, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise/Sequence) as our method to explicitly teach each skill. Through CLIMB the children read age related texts and answer a range of formal comprehension questions to improve their confidence and develop a love of reading.

Reading in KS2

In KS2, the focus is primarily on teaching reading comprehension although targeted interventions are run consistently for pupils who have not met the expected standard of phonics in KS1. Developing key reading skills through high-quality teaching is the priority for our children. Children are taught reading comprehension daily as a whole class through a guided reading novel study approach. Throughout these sessions, there is a continued focus on developing children’s V.I.P.E.R.S skills (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarise/sequence) Alongside these daily whole class guided reading sessions, children also read a short extract/ poem/ picture/ non-fiction extract and complete CLIMB sheets to further develop comprehension skills on a weekly basis. This is to ensure that children are exposed to a range of genres.

In addition to this, children are taught to read through small group reading interventions including reciprocal reading and small group phonic interventions. 

Teaching children to read is a high priority and so children read regularly with adults in school. A Literacy Volunteer from Beanstalk also works with individual children to further support their reading.  We also actively encourage children to read independently for pleasure. Each classroom has an engaging reading environment/class library to engage and motivate children to read.  In addition, children are encouraged to read and share books at home and so all children take home a book-banded book to support independent reading for pleasure. Throughout our school, each year group has a booklet with 100 of the very best books to read for their age, many of which can be found in our school or class libraries. These are each year group’s ‘recommended reads.’ These books are to encourage our children to love reading and to help them to engage with a diverse range of authors, genres and topics. Our fabulous 'recommended reads' lists can be found below.