Reading
Our intention is that pupils:

Develop an ability to read and understand written text using strategies that are relevant and accessible for each  individual fostering and developing  a genuine love of reading for life.

We believe that reading confidently and competently is an essential element of every pupil’s future success.  We ensure that pupils throughout the school have access to a wide range of reading materials and that opportunities to facilitate reading experiences are given the highest priority. 

We promote independent reading across the curriculum through the development of skills such as decoding, word recognition, and contextual understanding.  We build upon pupils’ reading interests where possible and texts to carefully foster positive attitudes.  

Comprehension developing activities are implemented to ensure pupils have a secure understanding of text, author intent, use of language, inference and deduction skills. 

Our aim is to ensure that pupils  are prepared  with the necessary reading skills in preparation for living independent and successful lives.

Skilled reading involves both the working out how to say (“sounding out”) an unfamiliar word  (decoding) and the speedy recognition  of familiar printed words.   Underpinning both is the understanding that the letters on the page represent the sounds in spoken words. 

For primary and all pupils working on phonics, we follow the Sound Discovery scheme which is a systematic, synthetic phonics programme which links the teaching of reading, spelling and writing.  This has been chosen as our preferred programme due to the its appropriateness across primary phase and for older learners into adulthood. This ensures that a consistent approach to phonics  can be achieved across all phases  for those pupils requiring continued development of a phonics approach to reading and spelling. 

We also recognise that for some of our pupils, and in particular, as they move through the school they require other approaches to the teaching and development of reading and therefore in addition to this we have further resources and approaches to support them such as Nessy Online spelling and reading  programmes and whole word approaches.  Pupils have access to a wide range of high quality texts at age appropriate levels.  These include Bug Club reading scheme, Rapid Readers (Online and hard copy) and Barrington Stoke books.  Our library is well stocked with current and high interest books  and all books are coded in line with the Accelerated Reader scheme which many pupils  move to enabling them to access a wide range of books at their current reading level and to complete quizzes based on these texts giving pupils instant feedback and further enabling teaching staff to accurately monitor progress and next steps in a pupil’s reading.

English lessons and reading sessions also focus on comprehension and vocabulary development.  Pre teaching of key vocabulary is central to all aspects of teaching across the curriculum and this is key to enabling our pupils to access books and resources at a high level.  Pupils’ comprehension of text is prompted  and developed by the use of Blanks Level questioning  in line with current assessment of language understanding.

Specific reading time is allocated for all pupils from KS2-4  in addition to that which takes place across the curriculum.  As well as encouraging pupils to read specific texts, pupils are widely encouraged to choose and bring home additional books to share and to read a wide variety of materials which are of particular interest to them such as comics, newspapers, non-fiction, fiction and poetry.  The school council have a role in sharing pupil voice regarding additional materials and texts  that are in the school and Post 16 students have been consulted on their experiences and what they believe will further support their  functional and  general reading development.

Senior pupils  support younger pupils with their reading and there are “Read with….” slots  read and produced  as videos by older pupils for access throughout the school.

Many additional opportunities to promote reading for all pupils are embedded within the school week and include opportunities such as:

• Presentations during weekly celebration assemblies
• Narrating during assemblies for external audiences
• Whole school drama productions
• “Grove House News” reporting and producing
• World Book Day
• Reading events such as “Interesting places to read”
• Visiting author events

Pupils progress is assessed and monitored across the curriculum and recorded on the Progression Steps assessment framework in addition to development through the phonics scheme, Accelerated Reader data and annual standardised assessments.