Reading

Intent

At Turnfurlong Junior school we believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers.  Reading enables communication, develops learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment.

At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought provoking texts.  Reading is the cornerstone of accessing the whole curriculum and texts are carefully planned and woven throughout the whole curriculum.

We want children to read for pleasure, engage with a variety of books and develop a greater appreciation and understanding of the world around them.  We recognise the importance of taking a consistent approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps and are committed to ensuring that every child leaves ‘a reader.’

We have high expectations of all children and we encourage them to challenge themselves, believe in themselves and pursue their dreams

Implementation

At TJS we follow a four day structured approach to reading activities through Whole Class Reading.  Class texts are chosen in line with the Reading Spine developed by Doug Lemov through his book ‘Reading Reconsidered’.  In this he points out that there are five types of texts that children should have access to in order to successfully navigate reading with confidence. These class texts are also supplemented with extracts from books and a range of poetry.  Adults teach using the  VIPERS key skills (Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, Summarise/Sequence) to enable the children to develop understanding and analysis of a text.  

Children who have not met the required standard for phonics or those that have been identified as needing further support will receive either phonics catch-up or other appropriate programmes following in-depth testing on entry in Year 3.  Examples of support programmes are Rapid Reader, Precision Monitoring, Active Literacy and Alpha 2 Omega.  Children are screened and tested for Dyslexia from the age of 8 where difficulties have been identified and a specific targeted programme is created to support those children.  

At TJS we believe that regular reading both at school and home is a vital tool in developing reading skills.   Books are levelled through the Accelerated Reader programme and all children’s progress is monitored through an online reading test every term. This provides strong links between school and families and helps parents / carers know what level books their child should be reading.   Book choice is monitored by staff and children are encouraged to choose a wide range of titles and authors to broaden their experience.  

The school has also implemented Story-Telling Schools and vocabulary initiatives such as Word Aware and Vocab Ninja to also support reading and writing.

Impact

The impact of the reading emphasis and teaching at TJS will be:

• Children moving to secondary school with confident reading skills to tackle the KS3 curriculum
• High levels of comprehension and vocabulary development
• High levels of engagement in the books children read
• The ability to read across a range of subjects
• A fostering of reading for pleasure 

Enrichment

 During their time at TJS, our children are given every opportunity to participate in a wide range of learning experiences beyond their classroom.  These experiences include trips to educational visits, outside visitors into school for themed days, story cafe and story swaps as well as community project work to provide children with stimulating real-life experiences to pin their reading, writing and speaking development to.   As well as an extensively stocked library, children have the opportunities to meet and work with a range of authors to inspire them and build their knowledge of literature. 

Key Documents

Reading Spine Overview

Reading Viper Question Stem