Christ Church C of E VC Infant School

Being a Reader

Being a Reader at CCI

Lead Reader: Jenni Rylands

Intent

At CCI we aim to inspire a love of and for books. We share stories across the school, building much of our learning from stories that we share. We value a variety of reading skills and are currently focused on developing our teaching of reading to include phonics, fluency and a development of extended vocabulary. Children come into our school with a variety to preschool reading experiences and a wide range of acquired skills – we aim to ensure that all children are able to progress from their own starting point to a point where they are ready to move to junior school able to access their whole curriculum due to their level of independent reading.

Implementation

What does reading look like at CCI?

Using a topic based approach encourages lots of writing at our school. Each term we choose texts to base our writing on that support our topic, providing variety and interest in the writing opportunities that are provided.

EYFS
Phonics	Phonics is taught each day - This is an opportunity for children to practise phoneme / grapheme correspondence, learn new sounds and revisit and use those sound they have already learnt.
Reading (Individually or in small groups)	Children have the opportunity to work alongside adults in their class each week to practise reading skills – staff really enjoy sharing books with children and seeing their progress.
Whole class shared stories	We have 2 dedicated sessions of 15 minutes a day when classes are encouraged to share a story - discussing the events, language in the book and modelling reading skills.
Continuous Provision	Each classroom has a book corner where children are encouraged to enjoy books, magazines and non-fiction texts independently or with friends. These books can inspire play or develop ideas for writing.
Home Reading	A vital part of supporting your child to become a fluent reader is reading with them regularly at home. We ask parents to read 4 times a week at home to support their child.

Year 1
Phonics	Phonics is taught each day – This is an opportunity to build on the skill learnt in EYFS. Revisiting sounds and also introducing further sounds. Children are taught that there are alternative ways of making some sounds and how these are represented in words. Children are prepared though out the year for their phonic screening, a national assessment they have at the end of Year 1.
Active reading Sessions	Children have active reading each day, when they explore reading skills such as prediction, intonation and early inference. We read with a group of children each day – focusing on one reading skill each week. We ensure that children have the opportunity to develop their love of reading though these sessions too as they can read a variety of books.
Whole class reading	We have 2 15 minute sessions each day for whole class story sharing, Children are able to nominate books to share as a class – teachers model reading and discuss the texts they are sharing..
Independent reading opportunities	Each class has a reading corner where children can choose to share a book or read quietly to themselves. Children are encouraged to develop an understanding of their favourite types of books.
Reading at home	A vital part of supporting your child to become a fluent reader is reading with them regularly at home. We ask parents to read 4 times a week at home to support their child.

Year 2
SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar)	SPaG sessions give the children an opportunity to revisit phonic skills learnt in Yr 1 and recognise different spellings patterns in words, supporting their reading skills.
Active Reading Sessions	Children have active reading each day, when they explore reading skills such as prediction, intonation and early inference. We read with a group of children each day – focusing on one reading skill each week. Children are encouraged to develop their comprehension and inference skills though discussion about texts and question answering after reading.
Whole class reading	We have 2 15 minute sessions each day for whole class story sharing, Children are able to nominate books to share as a class – teachers model reading and discuss the texts they are sharing..
Independent reading opportunities	Each class has a reading corner where children can choose to share a book or read quietly to themselves. Children are encouraged to develop an understanding of their favourite types of books.
Reading at home	A vital part of supporting your child to become a fluent reader is reading with them regularly at home. We ask parents to read 4 times a week at home to support their child.

Impact

Reading progress is monitored closely across the year, though group and individual reading. We consider not only the fluency of children’s reading but also their understanding of what is being read. Children all developing their reading skills at different rates and need different areas of support as they move through their reading journey.

All children move though our coloured reading scheme as they become more confident readers and this aids our assessment of reading, ensuring that children have their own individual next steps and promoting progress and continued interest and enjoyment in reading.

We value children’s enjoyment of reading and this is monitored through pupil conferencing as well as observation of children enjoying books.

‘The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go’ - Dr. Seuss