Reading at Moss Hey Primary

Our intent

Learning to read is one of the most important skills your child will learn and is at the heart of our curriculum. As soon as our children start at Moss Hey until they leave us in Y6, we strive to make sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible, develops a variety of independent reading skills and a love of reading which unlocks a world of information, imaginative and joy for them.

Implementing early reading at Moss Hey

We are focussed on teaching our youngest children to learn to read by cracking the phonetic code. To do this, we consistently follow the Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) Phonics approach to the teaching of Phonics across EYFS and Key Stage 1. This scheme also supports the reading of harder to read sight words.

Phonics is delivered in EYFS and Year 1 through daily, whole class sessions.  Children are introduced to a decodable book each Friday and this is taken home to read to practise their decoding, develop confidence, fluency and enjoyment of reading. Each child has a reading diary to encourage home -school links as we value support from home to support each child in their reading journey.

The impact of our teaching and learning in EYSFS and KS1  

Assessment

Children are assessed on their phonic and harder to read words every 5 weeks and where needed, catch up sessions such as daily readers are introduced. Children who also need to continue developing their phonics skills will do so into KS2.

In Year 1, children will take part in the national phonics check.

Year 1 Phonics check results

Reading for Pleasure in EYFS and Year 1

Reading for Pleasure is a core focus in Reception and Year 1: During our story time sessions which take place at least four times a week, the teachers read a fiction, non-fiction or poetry book to the class. Reception parents take part in our ‘Mystery Reader’ session every week and share their favourite children’s book with the class. Our Year 6 Buddies, read to our Reception class each week and share their own love of reading.

Implementing reading in Year 2 – 6 at Moss Hey

Reading is taught through a whole-class reading guided reading session four times a week. The rich and challenging texts will be chosen specifically by the teacher to support key skills and link to other learning from across the curriculum including our Writing scheme Ready Steady Write. The lessons follow a structured weekly pattern of text introduction and teaching of new vocabulary, followed by specific teaching and learning of seven reading skills: see our guided reading document on the tab below.

This approach ensures:

• A systematic focused approach where reading skills are explicitly taught.
• Explicit teaching and learning of new vocabulary to deepens their understanding of the texts they are reading.
• Children are accessing rich and challenging texts from a variety of genres
• Both verbal discussions and written responses

In addition to taught lessons, each child will have a reading book which will be chosen from our Reading Recovery scheme up to Sapphire RR30 and then a  lexiled reading book  which ensures that the reading age and content is appropriate and offers the correct level of challenge. We continue to use a reading diary to continue the dialogue between home and school.

The impact of our teaching and learning in Year 2 – Year 6

Assessment

All children are assessed regularly to ensure progression of reading skills:

• Termly assessments: Year 2 to Y6
• Daily reading records (home/school)
• Guided reading sessions

Where needed, we offer support to children who will benefit from additional or different support. We use an assessment called Benchmarking to ensure that these children are reading at the appropriate level for them and the most appropriate support is put in place.

Additional or different support we offer is

• 1:1 reading to support children not reading at age related expectations

• Nessy

• Toe by Toe

In Year 6, our children will take part in the national SATS assessments.

Reading SATs results

Reading for Pleasure in Y2 – Y6

As in EYFS and Year 1, each teacher in Year 2 -6 will read a class story or novel at least four times a week. Class books are chosen to expose children to a range of genres and authors. As well as reflecting experiences and perspectives that are similar and different from their own. Books are placed at the heart of every topic in the curriculum and reading is integral to everyday school life.

Teaching Vocabulary at Moss Hey Primary

At Moss Hey, we value the importance of explicitly teaching vocabulary across the curriculum and vocabulary teaching and learning is an integral part of the reading lessons in EYFS, KS1 and KS2. Please see our Oracy policy for further information.

Our school library

The library, which sits at the heart of our school, contains a wealth of reading materials including  non- fiction , poetry and  fiction. The children have weekly library sessions where they spend time selecting and reading books they wish to take home and share.  The school recognises and values the significant role of parents in further developing reading skills.

Our library is a bank of quality texts which are used as hooks into learning across the curriculum. A rich diet of books from modern classics to contemporary fiction along with high interest non-fiction texts are used to engage our children into new areas of learning.

Events to support Reading at Moss Hey

National book events such as ‘World Book Day’ are celebrated, alongside visits from authors and poets.

Class based parent’s/carer’s workshops are held to share how we teach reading and offer support to work at home with the children.

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