At Roselands we believe that all pupils should have the opportunity to be fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts. We want pupils to foster a love of reading, have a good knowledge of a range of authors, and be able to understand more about the world in which they live through the knowledge they gain from texts. By the end of their time at primary school, all children should be able to read fluently and with confidence across the curriculum. We do not put ceilings on what pupils can achieve in reading and we do not hold pre-conceptions about any pupils’ ability to make progress. We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills, and so we want to encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school through high quality texts.

There are 3 school libraries, which are accessed by Years 1 - 6 (each phase has their own library).  Each Reception classroom has a book corner which is stocked with high quality, age appropriate texts.  It is an enticing and comfortable place for children to choose to access.  Each class from Years 1 - 6 has a designated reading area which is stocked with alternative types of texts e.g. newspapers, comics, magazines and annuals. These enable children to engage in different genres.   Children are encouraged to read for pleasure during reading focus time where they choose to read their school reading book or select one from the display/library/reading corner.   Every day, all children have story time when they are read an age appropriate class book to inspire a love of reading. These books are high quality, mostly chosen from Pie Corbett’s reading spine. The teaching assistants who run this session have had training on making this an effective session where reading for pleasure is promoted.

Early reading books are matched to the Little Wandle phonic program so that children can practice their phonic knowledge.  Children take books that are matched to their phonic ability home to practise their reading and consolidate their phonic learning.  As soon as their phonic knowledge is secure, children move onto Accelerated Reader.  They take a star reading test which matches them to a reading band according to their reading ability.  The children then choose a book from their reading band and read these both at home and at school during independent reading time. After each book the children take a quiz on accelerated reader which checks their understanding of the text.

Teachers and TAs regularly discuss the children’s reading preferences and get to know them as a reader.  They encourage children to reflect on what they have read.  In Year 2 to 6 all children in the class access the same book for whole class reading lessons.  The books have an appropriate level of challenge for the age of the children, exposing them to a wide range of genres and rich vocabulary.  The texts are shared either through a physical copy of the book, a printed/photocopied version of the book or a copy accessed on a device e.g. iPad/Chromebook.  Whole class Reading lessons focus on teaching reading comprehension, which is done through building children’s word reading and language comprehension skills.  The ‘Reading comprehension house’ illustrates that word reading and language comprehension are underpinned by a number of other building blocks of reading.  These component parts build on one another and connect together as children learn to read.