Intent
Igniting a love of reading and introducing a wide world of literature.
At Coads Green Primary School, we equip children with a strong command of the spoken and written word, while developing their enjoyment of literature through widespread reading.
We aim to ensure that all children become fluent readers as soon as possible, to allow them to properly comprehend a wide range of texts. We introduce the children to the world of books, and guide them towards forming the habit of reading regularly. The children learn about our rich and varied literary heritage, while developing their own writing skills through their access to inspirational authors.
At Coads Green Primary School, we aim to provide our children with the experiences and scaffolding they need to be able to write inventively for themselves. They are equipped with the rich language and skills that they need to produce their own high standard of writing, for a wide range of purposes.
Implementation
Reading
We want your child to love reading - and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.
Early Reading
At Coads Green Primary School, we follow the Read Write Inc programme from Reception, until children reach a good level of reading fluency.
We initially teach children the single letter sounds, and how to blend them together. We then begin to look at ‘diagraphs’ and ‘trigraphs’- where two or three letters make a new sound when put together.
We teach children to read a new story every week in school, which contains the sounds that they have been taught so far. This ensures that the children are able to read the book, and that they experience success when doing so. By the time your child brings home the story book that they have been learning to read in school, they should find it easy! This is something that you can celebrate and enjoy together.
Your child will also bring home a matching ‘Book Bag Book’, which is based on similar themes and contains the same sounds as that weeks ‘Story Book’. This one will be new to your child and will not be so easy!
The children are assessed every half term to see what level of fluency their reading is at, and to see how many sounds they know and can apply to their reading. The children are then put into groups based on this information, which allows us to tailor our teaching and support directly to their needs.
You can support your child through their Read Write Inc journey by listening to them read several times a week at home, and recording it in their reading record. It is helpful to practice the ‘speedy
green words’ and ‘red words’ in each book before starting the story. There is also a range of comprehension questions in each book, which you can discuss together.
Accelerated Reader
Once the children are able to read with a good level of fluency, they then begin to access Accelerated Reader (AR).
Accelerated Reader ensures that children are accessing books which are suitable for their level of reading fluency and comprehension skills.
Whole Class Guided Reading
Children who have progressed from our RWi scheme will then be explicitly taught reading comprehension skills in whole class sessions using a wide range of high quality texts.
We use the Literacy Shed’s VIPERS as a basis for discussion and questioning around the texts.
VIPERS stands for:
Vocabulary
Inference
Prediction
Explanation
Retrieval
Sequence or Summarise.
Writing
We aim to instil a love of writing in our children, and to ensure they are able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively through the written word.
Talk for Writing
We use Talk for Writing to support our children’s literacy skills. Talk for Writing is powerful because it is based on the principles of how children learn.
Talk for Writing enables children to imitate the key language they need for a particular topic orally before they try reading it and analysing it. Through fun activities to help them rehearse the tune of the language they need, followed by shared writing to show them how to craft their genre, children are helped to write in the same style. It works well right through from the Early Years up to year 6 and beyond.
We use high quality texts from Pie Corbett’s reading spine, or our teachers choose their own texts specifically for their themes and use of language. Talk for Writing is an excellent basis for us to teach fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Assessment
Assessment in Coads Green Primary School is viewed as building a picture over time of a child's learning progress across the curriculum and is viewed as an integral part of teaching and learning.
Assessment for learning (AFL) and Visible Learning underpin all learning. A variety of feedback is used to inform the pupils about their learning so that they become more involved in their own learning and from this gain confidence in what they are expected to learn and how to progress it further.
Both formative and summative assessment is used to gather evidence. Some examples of this maybe:
Summative:
End of KS 1 and KS2 SATs
Y1 phonics screening
EYFS Early Learning Goals
Reception Baseline check
Formative:
Accelerated Reader screening
Phonics screening (Read, Write, Inc)
Spelling
Pupil Retrieval Practices include:
KWL grids, quizzes, concept/ mind maps, questioning, success criteria, learning intentions and pupil targets.
Whole School Tracking and Progress
Coads Green Primary School uses iTRACK which is the online pupil tracking software that uses powerful data analysis to track pupil progress and attainment in real time.