Reading
What does the teaching of reading look like at The Weatheralls?
At the Weatheralls we aim to foster a love for reading. With this in mind, we are a Talk for Reading school and have at least 4 sessions a week from years 2-6. Talk for Reading is not about teaching ‘exam/test reading’, isolated ‘skills’ or ‘strategies’. It is about developing children’s ability to read strategically in order to gain the core purpose from a challenging, quality text. The approach embeds Rosenshine’s principles of instructions and allows the children to embrace our curriculum drivers.
Our focus is on the active engagement of the reader during reading so that links can be made, connections developed and refined in the light of new information, gradually building and shaping a mental model of the text.
Long term goals for reading
We want every child to be reading at their age-related level. The children will have access to different voices, forms and genres as well as understanding the world from the rich texts they are exposed to within their talk for reading sessions.
Our library is well stocked, with up to date, quality fiction and non-fiction texts that the children can choose from to support their learning and to encourage reading for pleasure. Our teachers have a passion for reading and share this passion with children through the choice of high quality texts and sharing books regularly with their classes.
What else do we do to support our children?
From reception to year 3, 1:1 reading is prioritised to ensure that the children are making progress with their reading speed, decoding and comprehension. We also have a range of different interventions happening where appropriate, to close the gaps in reading, especially for children that meet the Screening recheck pass mark in year 2.
How do we assess reading at The Weatheralls
Our teachers and TA’s are assessing the children’s reading every time they hear them read. Reading sessions and activities are created to support the national curriculum expectations. We also use Pira assessments which identifies interventions that are then used by our level 3 TA’s to close progress gaps in specific areas. We also have a number of adults trained in PM benchmarking to triangulate teacher’s assessments.
Library
Every week, each class gets to spend some time in the library. Mrs Nicholson and the class adults help children to choose a book, and children are encouraged to recommend books to others.
Reading Assembly
Every Tuesday, we celebrate reading at school by staff sharing a book, poem or text. In our Key Stages, children are inspired by the staff to try out a new book or a new genre of book. We have had some very exciting assemblies with staff sharing some extracts that leave us on a cliffhanger, children sharing some book reviews and even a book in French!
Reading Scrap Books
Each class has a reading scrap book that the children take in turns to take home. In the pack, there are some lovely materials to help children create a page about their favourite book or a book they enjoy. There is an opportunity to share that with the class when they bring it back to inspire other children to read it.
Here are some examples:
Reading Scrap Books
The Secret Reader
The ‘Secret Reader,’ invites a guest reader (parent, grandparent or carer) into the classroom once a week to read or tell a favourite story to the class.
The chosen children’s book should be a firm favourite, either with the adult reading or with the child in the class. A successful secret reader, shares a book that they enjoy reading, maybe one that they have read many times before, enabling them to relax as they read. The children do not know who is going to appear in our classroom to share a story until the ‘guest’ arrives in the classroom, hence the title ‘Secret Reader!’
If you or someone you know is interested in helping us with this initiative, please sign up by messaging the class teacher on Class Dojo or catch us at the door.
Parent Reading Forum
Why not join our parent reading forum group on Class Dojo to get some recommended reads from our staff?