Reading Guidance
Reading
We believe that every child should leave Manorfield Primary School being able to read.
To achieve this, we must ensure that all children reach age-related expectations not just at the end of every year, but at the end of every term.
Any child who does not meet age-related expectations at any point, must make accelerated progress in order to ‘catch up’.
How we teach reading
Phonics
From Nursery to the end of Year 2, we teach phonics on a daily basis.
Nursery:
- A phonics assessment will be undertaken on arrival
- From this assessment, children are divided into groups to focus on aspects / ability
- Daily group approach of approximately 10 minutes – depending on the aspect being covered and the ability of the children.
- Planning is drawn from Letters & Sounds
- Phonics sessions are planned - with an introduction, main session and ‘apply section’.
- There are regular assessments and children will move between groups as appropriate.
- Expectation at the end of Nursery – 85%+ children are able to orally blend and segment as in Phase 1 phonics.
Reception to Year 2:
- Individual Phonics Assessments continue from Nursery, moving with children up the school.
- Children are regularly assessed at the end of each phase.
- From R – Y2, we teach daily whole class phonics sessions: 20-25 minutes long per day.
- In Year 1 and 2, phonics is taught at tables.
- Phonics sessions are planned according to lesson plans saved on the school system
- Expectation at the end of Reception – 85%+ children are working securely at the end of Phase 3.
- Expectation at the end of Year 1 – 85%+ children are working securely at the end of Phase 5.
- Expectation at the end of Autumn Term in Year 2 – 85%+ children are working securely at the end of Phase 5 – including alternative spellings & pronunciations.
- The 15% of children who are not on track should be receiving additional daily phonics sessions.
Shared Reading
Nursery & Reception
- N & R – daily sessions (of approx. 10 minutes growing to 20 minutes by the end of Reception).
- In N – focus on concepts of print.
Year 1
- Daily session approx. 20 mins - 30 mins
Year 2 – 6
- 2 x per week @ 20 minutes approx. per session
Principles of shared reading
- Teacher has large text – big book or interactive whiteboard
- Shared reading is taught as a whole class with mixed ability.
- There is intensive teacher modelling thought process of:
- o thought processes,
- o decision making and
- o use of strategies
- Reading is interactive and children contribute to the session
- Texts should be intellectually challenging above the level at which the majority could work independently
- The texts used could be cross curricular (i.e. linked to class project)
- The class reader can be used for shared reading
- Ideally all children should have a copy (or in pairs) – but also displayed in large on IWB / big book.
Teaching sequence for shared reading
- Book introduction –
- o What do you think the book is about?
- o Where do you think it is set?
- Shared Reading –
- o How are we going to read this word?
- o What strategy can we use to read this word?
- o Does that make sense?
- Interactive Strategies –
- o Can you find that word in the text?
- o Do actions and repeat sentence structures chorally
- Comprehension Skills
- o Oral question
- o Find the answer / sentence in the text
- o Opinion and
- o Sentence structure
Guided Reading
Nursery
- No guided reading takes place in the Nursery
- There is an expectation of reading activities throughout the week – e.g. in book corner /home corner / role play area / outdoor environment – both planned & at child’s request
Reception – Year 1
- Each child exposed to at least 2 x guided reading sessions per week.
- Timings – differ according to reading recovery level / colour of book.
- Groups of no more than 6 children in ability groups. This should not be restricted to 5 groups where this does not fit.
- By end of Reception – 85%+ children at yellow / reading recovery 6 and above
- By end of Year 1 – 85%+ children at turquoise and above
Year 2 – Year 6
- From Year 1 onwards – 30 minutes daily
- By end of Year 2 – 85%+ children at white level
General principles of guided reading
- 1 group with a teacher, 1 group with an additional adult
- Other children – working on specific, planned aspects of reading.
- Characterised by the transfer of the reading task to the child
- Children are taught in groups according to reading ability
- Every child in the group should have a copy of the text
- The teacher works with each group on a text carefully selected to offer an appropriate level of challenge
- Challenge may be in terms of the use of concepts of print, use of reading strategies, language and vocabulary
- The teacher aims to foster success by anticipating likely challenges prior to independent reading
- Texts should
- o have predictable grammatical structure, sequence and sense
- o a lively and interesting content
- o have nine out of ten words the child can read independently
- o challenge, whilst enabling children to succeed
- Not reading a storybook in unison with the rest of the group, listening while the teacher reads the book or reading along with the teacher
- Not taking turns around the group to read a page, paragraph or sentence or a new story
Teaching sequence for guided reading
- Book introduction
- Strategy check
- Independent reading
- Returning to the text
- Responding to the text
Other reading in the classroom
- Independent Reading
- Reading in the learning environment / across the curriculum