"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go."

Dr Seuss

 

Reading is defined as a cognitive process that involves decoding symbols to arrive at meaning. Reading is an active process of constructing the meanings of words. Reading with a purpose helps the reader to direct information towards a goal and focuses their attention.

Intent

At Cardrew Court School we aim to provide a safe, positive learning environment where our learners feel they belong, can believe in themselves, developing confidence and resilience as learners. We support them to achieve the desired outcomes to be successful in their next steps on the path to the world of work and independence, well-prepared for life and adulthood, who are keen to make a difference to the world they live in.

We believe that reading is an essential life skill, and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers.

 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 fiction and non-fiction including thought-provoking texts.

 Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future learning and employment. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading in order to ensure our children are fluent readers with well-developed comprehension skills.

Implementation

Phonics

At Cardrew Court School we teach early reading using synthetic phonics as the main approach. Pupils are systematically taught the phonemes (sounds), how to blend sounds for reading and how to segment the sounds in order to write words. They are taught to use their phonic skills and knowledge as their first approach to reading alongside high frequency words which don’t completely follow phonic rules.

We use the Read Write Inc phonics programme which has been developed by Ruth Miskin and is taught in over 5,000 schools in the UK.  This programme teaches all of the the common sounds in the English language. The children learn to recognise the sounds and then blend them into words for reading. 

We use Fresh Start for those pupils who need support phonics teaching with interest at a higher level than Read Write Inc.

Once children have completed the Read Write Inc or Fresh Start, they review their phonic knowledge as part of the RWInc spelling programme and the ‘dot and dash’ activities.

Reading Comprehension

The purpose of teaching reading is to enable children to comprehend written texts. To do this, pupils need to build both word reading and language comprehension skills.

At Cardrew Court School we teach pupils to use strategies for developing and monitoring reading comprehension. Teachers support learners to predict, question, clarify and summarise. Learners are taught to breakdown in reading – identifying words/ phrases they don’t understand and strategies to fix breakdown in meaning. Learners are taught to relate the text to themselves, previous reading experiences and the world around them.

Our approach to the teaching and learning of reading comprehension skills is founded upon research conducted by the Education Endowment Fund (EEF), which suggests that the direct instruction of reading comprehension skills facilitates an additional six months’ progress for all children. Our teaching and learning of reading comprehension skills are embedded in the pedagogy of Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction.

We engage our learners in the teaching and learning of a variety of reading comprehension skills including: retrieval; vocabulary and the meaning of unfamiliar words; inference, including prediction; summarising, authorial intent and the comparing and contrasting of texts.

These reading comprehension skills are underpinned by effective questioning and the considered annotation of the text using a common framework.

Our learner’s acquisition of reading comprehension skills is both active and inclusive.

We model and scaffold for the learners explicit strategies as to how to retrieve key information from a text; how to decipher the meaning of vocabulary and unfamiliar words and how to make inferences, employing the ‘APE’ model and predictions that are plausible and reasonable.

Strategies to develop reading comprehension are modelled. Further to modelled sessions, learners have the opportunity to read texts with greater independence and apply their skills when responding to the wide range of domain questions. More complex questions are evaluated between wider groups and teacher’s model how to refine answers to a high standard. Teachers use the VIPERS model to ensure a variety of questions are asked.

All children also take part in class reading sessions, which enables teachers to elicit the needs of children individually and identify areas for future development.

We teach comprehension using the high-quality texts we have selected to form our reading curriculum as well as a variety of quality materials to support intervention with our learners. Some examples are below:

Reading Fluency

At Cardrew Court school we develop fluency through modelling (showing learners how to read fluently), surveying the text (pointing out the clues that are used to read in that way), supporting reading (demonstrating fluency when reading with learners, including using strategies such as echo and choral reading). We prioritise our learners leaving school as fluent readers.

Reading Curriculum

High quality texts and extracts are chosen, appropriate to the abilities of the children, and teachers use this to model the application of the agreed reading skills.

Our reading scheme ensures children are offered high-quality books that reflect the diversity of our modern world.

Reading for Pleasure

Our reading curriculum provides many opportunities to enter the wide, factual and varied magical worlds that reading opens up to them. Reading is encouraged through the wide range of texts that are available, representing a wide range of genres. These form the spine of the reading curriculum and are also represented in the school library. Learners are also encouraged to request books they would like to read, and we add these to the library. The library is zoned into levels so that learners know the reading level of texts they’re choosing. We use assessment so that learners know the range they’re confident reading within.

Impact

Learners leave Cardrew Court School with an accreditation that is appropriate to a learner’s learning journey. This can take the form of an English Language GCSE, Step Up English, Entry-Level or Functional Skills qualification.

As a school we are fully committed to ensuring all of our learners have the ability to read, regardless of age or stage in their reading journey to being a confident reader.

You will see from our Reading Curriculum overview our learners have access to a variety of texts through the class novel, focus text, non-fiction and additional texts for each year group across each half-term. 

Please see some visual clips of the curriculum overview, also available as a PDF below: