At Scientia Academy, we believe that reading is fundamental to the education of our children and that without the ability to read, pupils cannot access the rest of the curriculum effectively. As a school, we are determined that every pupil will learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities. We aim to promote and encourage a real love of reading in all our pupils and help them become enthusiastic, confident, life-long readers.

Intent

Our intent is to provide a curriculum which leads to the necessary development of language and communication skills which our children require to succeed in life. We want to provide children with the opportunity to become fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully decode and comprehend a wide range of texts. We aim to meet the expectations laid out in the Early Learning Goals and National Curriculum, with pupils progressing appropriately across school. Once children can decode texts effectively, we aim to build word recognition and develop comprehension skills in order to produce secure, confident, independent readers who enjoy and understand the benefits of reading.

We aim to:

• Ensure our children have access to a reading curriculum that is both challenging and enjoyable.
• Deliver a high-quality phonics programme that gives children the best possible start to their journey as a reader.
• Provide our children with a variety of high-quality reading materials & opportunities, which will enable them to develop as lifelong readers with a love of reading.
• Enhance children’s vocabulary and use of standard English both written and orally.
• Ensure all children are confident and independent readers.
• Create inquisitive readers who ask questions about the texts they are reading.
• Equip all children with the reading skills needed to successfully research areas of personal interest.

Implementation

Read Write Inc.

Our pupils learn to read and write effectively and quickly using the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. These sessions are taught daily for 20-30 minutes to children in EYFS-Year 2. Children in Year 3 also begin the year consolidating their phonic knowledge.

In Read Write Inc. Phonics pupils:

• Decode letter-sound correspondences quickly and effortlessly, using their phonic knowledge and skills

• Read common exception words on sight

• Understand what they read

• Read aloud with fluency and expression

(Please see our Phonics page for more details on how Read Write Inc is delivered in our school.)

 KS2- Whole Class Reading

By KS2, children should be ready for the whole class reading sessions that are undertaken daily. The focus of these sessions is on vocabulary development, the development of specific reading skills and immersion in a wide range of texts. These lessons use class novels as a stimulus for deeper thinking and provide a rich diet of a fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts in order to further develop contextual knowledge and understanding. Class novels are read to the children for 5-10 minutes every day. This allows children to become fully immersed in the text and ask any questions they may have as the story progresses. Key vocabulary is displayed as the teacher reads to ensure that all children are able to access the content. Class novels should be challenging, either by vocabulary or theme, and are chosen by the class teachers based on the interests and needs of the children. These texts are then studied during whole class reading sessions twice a week, giving children the opportunity to deepen their understanding and practice key reading skills. Children in Key Stage 2 should also be exposed to a breadth of text types across the week including additional fiction, non-fiction, poetry, songs and picture books. On the remaining three days, teachers will provide children with a series of texts linked around a theme and use this opportunity to study each reading skill in more depth.

Inspiring a love of reading

It is hugely important to us at Scientia that we foster a love of reading in our children. We are proud to be working with the Open University to establish effective ways of supporting children's reading for pleasure. We are constantly seeking to improve our school library in order to provide a broad range of appealing reading material that reflects the interests and ethnicities of our pupils. Raffle tickets are given to children to encourage them to make positive reading choices and to children who are making good progress with their reading. Every half term, a name will be drawn from the raffle in each year group and the children chosen will get the opportunity to take home their very own book from our new vending machine. The books in the machine cannot be found in the school library and have been carefully selected to cover a range of themes and genres, meaning that children are able to experience a new and exciting book for the first time.