Reading
Intent:
At Mevagissey Primary School, we offer children an English Curriculum that is designed to inspire a life-long love of reading; a curriculum that ensures all children are taught the necessary skills to become confident and accomplished writers.
We recognise that each child requires a solid foundation of literacy skills in order to access the wider curriculum. We have therefore introduced a novel study curriculum, centred on the teaching of high-quality texts, capable of capturing children’s imagination whilst providing writing opportunities to excite and enthuse.
Implementation:
Reading is the key to academic success. Those children who enjoy reading and can read well have the door opened to a world of opportunity. At Mevagissey Primary School, encouraging children to love reading and books is at the forefront of what we do.
Teachers read to their classes daily, and through hearing stories, children are exposed to high-quality literature and given the opportunity to build their vocabulary. The shared joy of whole-class reading – in our opinion – is one of the most effective way of demonstrating to children the power of a great story.
We use Accelerated reader to track reading and ensure that pupils are selecting books of a suitable difficulty. Children are encouraged to read using a number of initiatives, such as our Class Ping Pong Challenge. Children earn ping pong balls when they read and quiz on their AR books. Once their class tube is full (photograph below) children receive a class reward, where their teacher reads them a new story and they share a small treat. We also have ‘Hot Chocolate Fridays’. Each week, children who have read regularly at home celebrate their reading achievements with a hot chocolate.
In 2019, having listened to the thoughts of our learners, we decided it was time to change the way that we taught reading comprehension. We agreed that a carousal of activities, where children were placed into smaller focus groups, would allow us to best meet the needs of all our learners.
We were eager to turn reading comprehension into a session children enjoyed. To achieve this, we introduced a range of exciting activities -from watching videos on Literacy Shed and answering questions, to reading their class novel as part of a small group. The novel study station would be led by an adult and the rationale was simple: share in the childrens’ excitement and promote a love of stories.
We also incorporated the brilliant Cracking Comprehension resource into our sessions. Finally, we adopted the Reading VIPERS approach, a strategy aimed at teaching children the skills required to identify the different question types they might face in a reading comprehension test.
Our guided reading sessions are geared towards the unpicking and teaching of ambitious and challenging language. Although reading comprehension skills are predominantly taught through our Guided Reading Carousal, we ensure there are plenty of opportunities for children to enjoy reading and listening to their novel as a class. Alongside the class novel, teachers also read poetry and short stories to their class.
To ensure children have access to a broad range of texts, we recently renewed our partnership with the library service. Our library is now full of exciting, high-quality texts!
Impact:
Children at Mevagissey Primary School are passionate about books. Children enjoy discussing the books they have read in school and at home.
When children are exposed to a wide range of books, they are given the opportunity to explore the perspectives of characters from all different walks of life. This helps to develop empathy.
Children broaden their vocabulary through reading.
Reading inspires and informs writing as children become better-able to identify ‘great’ examples of writing in the books that they read.
Reading attainment at the end of EYFS, KS1 and KS2 is above that of the National Average. Children also achieve highly in the phonics screening check.
Home reading
