Reading
At Sandford Hill Primary School, we strive to develop a lifelong love of reading and language. We immerse the children in a wide variety of stories and texts to inspire, interest and excite! Across the curriculum, opportunities are provided for the children to read a variety of high-quality texts to develop increasing levels of fluency and understanding. The children are taught how to use reading to gather information to support their learning across the whole curriculum as well as developing good reading habits that will support them throughout their education, their personal life and beyond.
Individual Reading Books
Starting in Nursery, the children are taught early reading skills using the Twinkl systematic synthetic phonics programme. Our Nursery children take story books home to share and have visits to the local library. Starting in Reception, all children have a phonically decodable reading book matched to their phonic ability. We use Bug Club and Floppy Phonic Reading scheme books which have been carefully aligned to match our progression in phonics. When children can read fluently and independently, they start the Accelerated Reader programme. The purpose of these reading books is to further develop and sustain a love of reading whilst regularly assessing comprehension skills.
Whole Class Reading
Our reading curriculum is designed to produce productive, creative and well-educated children with a love of reading. The whole class teaching of reading, while being fully inclusive, allows teachers to plan activities that enable children to practise using the relevant reading skills:
- understanding vocabulary
- inference
- prediction
- explain
- retrieve
- sequence and summarise.
Reading At Home
At Sandford Hill Primary School, we request that the children read at least four times a week at home as part of their home learning. Please take time to enjoy and share a story with your child and then sign your child’s diary so that their class teacher knows they have read. Even when your child becomes a confident reader, it is still important to read with your child so that a love for reading can continue to grow.
Accelerated Reader
When children can read fluently and independently, they start the Accelerated Reader programme. Accelerated Reader is an online programme linked to a vast collection of books available in our library. The purpose of these reading books is to further develop and sustain a love of reading. Accelerated Reader works by identifying a child’s ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) which is a selection of books that will not only match their reading ability but will also challenge and develop their vocabulary. Every half term, the children take a short ‘Star Reader’ test which identifies their ZPD. Children can then choose books from the school library that fall within this ZPD range. Our children are provided with opportunities to read their books daily in school and there is an expectation that the children read at least four times a week at home. When the children finish their book, they take a short online quiz. The quiz checks that the children have read and understood the book. It also enables teachers to closely monitor individual reading progress and ensure that children are selecting books which are challenging enough to meet their individual needs.