An Oxton St Saviour's Reader

“Once you learn to read, you’ll be forever free.”

Frederick Douglass

Intent

At Oxton St Saviour’s, we believe that the teaching of reading is integral to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves. We recognise that children need to read to find information that will support and enrich their learning and enable them to fully access the curriculum. Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum. We are committed to promoting a love for reading and not only giving children opportunities to read in English lessons, but in the wider curriculum too.

Our aims are:

• To teach children to decode letter-sound correspondences quickly and effortlessly, using their phonic knowledge and skills.
• To develop confident, independent readers through an appropriate focus on word, sentence and text level knowledge.
• To encourage children to become enthusiastic and reflective readers through challenging and longer texts.
• To foster a love of reading, meaning that children will become lifelong readers.

Implementation

Our curriculum is delivered through synthetic phonics, a linked approach to shared and guided reading, home reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent reading and hearing quality texts read aloud daily. All of these are essential components as they offer the range of opportunities needed to develop fluent, enthusiastic and critical readers. 

In Read Write Inc. Phonics, pupils are grouped across the school in terms of their reading ability meaning that they are reading at an appropriate decoding level every day. The homogeneous groups in the Phonic lessons help us to focus the teaching and ensure pupils learn to read quickly. Staff teaching Read Write Inc. Phonics record the results from the Assessments 1 and 2, which take place every six to eight weeks. This data allow us to intervene in different ways. For instance, we quickly move pupils to another group if they are progressing faster than their peers. Those who continue to struggle have one-to-one tutoring so that they keep up.

Reading scheme materials at Oxton St Saviour’s have been recently updated and are divided into two resources, Read Write Inc fully decodable texts and books levelled into Oxford Reading Tree book bands. Any additional scheme books have been banded according to the Nasen guidance. This provides the teacher and child with a very structured reading strategy ensuring steady progress through a wide variety of reading material without over reliance on one set scheme. Children in EYFS, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 where necessary, have access to a range of fully decodable RWI texts. Every child also has access to an online subscription of either Oxford Owl or Oxford Reading Buddies, where levelled texts can be chosen to further widen the range of books available to pupils. Oxford Reading Buddies also has the benefit of comprehension quizzes to accompany each text.

Teaching strategies for reading in Year 2 and into Key Stage 2 include whole class reading lessons, guided reading group sessions and individual reading. Pupils in the lowest 20% of each cohort are supported with daily tutoring sessions in addition to their whole class reading sessions. This tutoring helps us to meet their individual needs.

Reading for pleasure is a vital part of every child’s educational entitlement. Developing a love of reading has huge benefits for children, contributing to pupils’ educational achievement across the curriculum in addition to providing a lifetime of enjoyment. At Oxton St Saviour’s reading for pleasure is actively encouraged through regular, quality story time sessions, whole school reading events, careful use of display, author visits and book talks, reading buddies and regular celebrations of literary events.

Impact

The progress and development of pupils within the EYFS is assessed against the early learning goals outlined in the ‘Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage’.

From Year 1 upwards, children’s English skills are assessed by: 

• Half termly reading assessments (one assessment in autumn term) which may include formative assessments, RWI phonic assessments, Salford reading assessments, Rising Star assessments or previous SAT papers.
• Independent writing activities that can be used alongside other pieces of work in English books to build a picture of children’s attainment in writing.
• Regular spelling and grammar assessments which may include formative assessments, formal and informal spelling tests, Rising Star assessments or previous SAT papers.

Teacher assessments are recorded half termly on Target Tracker. This data is used by teachers and the English lead to assess and track children’s progress. Staff subject knowledge is continuously developed throughout the year through access to the RWI online portal, coaching sessions, training courses, moderation opportunities and lesson observations. Teaching and learning within this subject is regularly monitored by the subject leader.

Reading Ambassadors at Oxton St Saviour's 

The role of a Reading Ambassador is to engage, encourage and support the creation of a positive reading ethos across the whole school. We believe that to instill a love of reading we must put pupils at the heart of the process. We introduced Reading Ambassadors to provide pupil's voice in how we promote reading throughout the school.

Reading Ambassadors are chosen for their love of reading, their willingness to share this passion with others and enthusiasm to promote reading throughout the school.

Their role includes -

* Encouraging others in their class to read.

* Sharing book reviews and recommendations with their classes.

* Completing library audits to find out what books are available in classrooms.

* Helping with reading events across the school.

* Creating displays to promote reading within school.

* Providing ideas to improve the curriculum

The group meet fortnightly with the Reading Leader and are actively involved in promoting reading for pleasure across school. They also support the teachers with the running of the class libraries. They feedback to the Reading Leader on what is happening in the classrooms and what they feel will improve and promote reading across school. 

It is a role that is developing and evolving and we are excited to see how the role will continue to grow across this next academic year! 

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