St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School

Intent

We have designed our curriculum to encourage children to become confident and enthusiastic about reading.  We have achieved this by listening to our children’s voices and ensuring that the curriculum is designed so that it is ambitious for all learners. Through our English Curriculum, we strive to teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the real world. We offer rich and vibrant opportunities for learners to be exposed to a variety of genres and authors. We intend for all learners to be able to read, write and spell at age –appropriate expectations and have provided sufficient amount of time in the timetable to allow for this. We have a range of strategies in place for learners to develop a love for reading and be able to read confidently and fluently. We want our children to have a positive attitude towards communication and to be able to independently express their emotions and their ideas. We aspire to equip our children with these skills now and in their futures.

Implementation

At St Thomas a Becket Catholic Primary School we want all of our pupils to be capable readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their English skills to other subjects in the curriculum and to take forward in the next stages of their education and their futures. Our English lessons give all children the opportunity to develop these skills. Children are encouraged to read for pleasure and to read widely. We aim to foster a love of reading through:

 · Class story time/Daily teacher read aloud times

 · Buddy Reading Sessions (every term)

 · Reading rewards for regular reading at home

· Celebrating World Book Day

· Visiting authors and theatre groups

· Inviting book corners in each classroom offering a range of books to encourage a breadth of reading 

· Visits from the East Sussex Library Service visit to promote the Summer Reading Challenge

· Daily rhymes/poems in classes

All children are exposed to a range of rich texts including fiction, non-fiction and poetry to ensure they have access to a wide breadth of quality reading materials and stimulus.  Our reading spine is a carefully curated selection of outstanding literature chosen to support pupils' reading journeys as they progress through our school. This diverse collection promotes cultural capital, ensuring children are introduced to a variety of viewpoints and experiences. Through reading these carefully selected titles aloud, we aim to encourage meaningful discussions and inspire writing innovations and hot tasks.

We follow the Read Write Inc. literacy programme developed by Ruth Miskin. In Read Write Inc. Phonic lessons children learn how to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. Throughout the programme, children learn the English alphabetic code: the 150+ graphemes that represent 44 speech sounds. This learning is taught and consolidated every day and high frequency words that are not phonetically regular (we call them tricky red words) are practised frequently.

All learners engage in daily reading or phonic activities for 40mins each day. In Reception, during the Autumn term, children are taught the single letter sounds.  They practise reading and writing the sounds and play lots of ‘Fred Talk’ games to develop their ability to blend sounds orally.  When they can blend, children then move onto learning to read simple words with two and three sounds. In the Spring term, Reception children are taught in groups by phonic stage. Children in Years 1 and 2 (and KS2, if they are still learning to read) work in progress groups to master each level of phonics and reading. The daily 40-minute reading session includes a phonic speed sound lesson and storybook reading activities. Each storybook follows a three-day timetable focussing on the accuracy of reading words, fluency and comprehension. Read. Write Inc. Comprehension modules are used by learners in Year 2 and 3 during the Autumn Term to develop fluency and understanding. In Years 4 – 6 children are taught how to master comprehension skills following a whole class programme called Comprehension Express. The Read Write Inc. Spelling programme is used alongside this to ensure spelling success for children who are fluent readers. From term 3, children in Years 2-6 take part in guided reading sessions following the Project X reading scheme, which exposes them to a range of non-fiction and fiction books. Teachers plan a carousel of activities across the week including reading with the teacher, reading independently and completing a comprehension task.  The Comprehension Express Top 10 expert reading tips are used to support