Intent

At the Phoenix Learning Alliance we believe that a quality reading curriculum should develop children’s love of reading. We aim to inspire an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning.

We believe that children need to develop confidence and fluency in reading, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum.  Reading materials have been selected to build cumulatively and progressively.  We believe that a secure basis in reading skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to be successful in their next stage of education.

Our children will leave with a love of reading, able to discuss books and compare works of key authors. At secondary school they will be able to access the full curriculum offer and read both for knowledge- acquisition and pleasure

Implementation

Reading is taught daily throughout the school in line with the National Curriculum (2014) for half an hour using a whole class approach.

We believe that ‘good readers are successful across the curriculum’.  Therefore, children are exposed to high quality, age appropriate texts that cover a range of genres. Phonics is taught daily in Reception and KS1, and progresses to whole class reading on completion of the phonics programme after Easter in Year 2. All children graduate from Read, Write Inc. and begin whole class reading, starting with extracts from RWInc. comprehension which match their phonic ability with precision.

Children follow a set progression of skills through the content domains of the National Curriculum using the acronym of VIPERS to develop an ability to decode and comprehend the texts they read.  This approach is reinforced whenever a child reads whether in school and parents are encouraged to focus on this at home.

To ensure our taught curriculum is a stepping stone into independent reading, two copies of the books from each extract are available to the children in their class libraries alongside other copies of their other works. To guide the children into selecting these books to read independently, the extracts ensure children are exposed to ‘unmissable’ scenes, chapter ones and prologues- enticing the children to want to read on.

Reading is taught through a diverse and ambitious text spine of extracts that are cumulative and progressive in nature, where both the complexity in text level and themes addressed are built upon term-by-term.  We use a ‘Read, Enrich, Explore’ approach to reading across the week (see below). The extracts are rich in cultural capital through the themes they address alongside the historical and geographic settings. Authors have been selected specifically to include a range of contemporary and relevant authors (which in turn provide relevant protagonists) alongside a purposeful mix of modern classic and classic texts that provide a step into wider reading for the children.  Non-fiction and poetry are also an integral part of the spine, where the non-fiction link to the ‘focus text’ of the writing curriculum.

Progression within the content domains in ensured through a rigorous document which progressively increase the understanding of each reading content domain term-by-term, year-by-year.

Teachers plan to the needs of their class by cross-referencing the assessment data obtained from the NTS reading assessments (see more detail below), where they find the content domains that the children need more teaching in and focus on these more heavily across a term than some of the content domains that the children are already more proficient at.

Each extract is pre-read as an intervention prior to the main learning sequence (where necessary) to the children who require additional input and who may need some extra time and practice with the decoding element of the text so that they come to the first lesson equipped with a confidence and understanding to accessing the same learning as their peers working at ARE.

READ, ENRICH, EXPLORE

READ: On the first day of a new unit of work, challenging vocabulary is pre-taught to the class so that they have a solid understanding when they meet it in context. Subsequently, the children have the text read to them by the class teacher and the children follow on the page in front of them. The teacher’s focus is on modelling of pace, fluency and intonation. The lesson is concluded through Aidan Chambers’ ‘book talk’ model of ‘likes, dislikes, puzzles and patterns’ where the children discuss and explore the text they have been read.

ENRICH: As the texts are rich in their complexity and cultural capital, there may be elements that the children would struggle to comprehend at face value (for example why one character looked at the other in a certain way, or a cultural reference that is integral to the comprehension of the extract). We mitigate this, if there is a need, and deepen the children’s understanding through an ‘enrichment’ task, which can comprise of further reading, an experience or additional discreet teaching that underpins the deep comprehension of the text. Once this is complete, the teacher reads the text for a second time, linking the enrichment to the comprehension and how they now have a deeper understanding; pausing to spaced-retrieve vocabulary and model ‘thinking aloud’ and authorial intent.

If this is not required as the teacher feels the children will comprehend the text on its first read, then the children complete a read aloud activity, such as reading at an appropriate pace, or giving characters voices.

EXPLORE: The following three lessons are where the children are equipped to study the text in depth, using the content domains of the National Curriculum. The lesson focuses on one content domain in the form of a VIPER for the children and consist of a balance between formal comprehension questions and a wider, richer response to reading. Where formal comprehension questions are used, teacher modelling is apparent by working through a shared example as a class and highlighting the skills required before the children complete similar questions independently.

ASSESSMENT

Formative assessment takes place tri-annually across the trust using the NTS reading assessments. This data is used by leaders to measure the efficacy of reading and to hold teachers to account, and teachers use it to be assured of the content domain deficiencies that they need to address with their pupils.

CLASS READER

In addition to reading lessons, children are also exposed to a class novel for 15 minutes each day. The class novel is pre-selected so that the children are strategically introduced to a wide range of diverse literature that ensures that children have the opportunities to see themselves in books, underpinned by the theory of ‘windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors’. They have also been selected to run in parallel with the reading extracts in the reading lesson so that children have opportunity to draw parallels in authorial styles and themes from a rich range of authors. The books themselves have been selected to address Lemov’s ‘five plagues of the developing reader’ with a sixth ‘year group focus author’ so that the children experience these texts in a forum that they can be guided through by their teacher and offering rich discussion points with their peers.

However, the most important element to our reading curriculum is that it provides each class teacher to be every child in their class’ reading role model.