Intent

At Manor Farm Junior School, we believe that literacy and communication are key life skills. Through the reading curriculum,  children will be supported in developing skills and knowledge that will empower them both through their time at school and in later life and enable them to communicate effectively, confidently and creatively through spoken and written language. 

We provide a wide range of rich and meaningful  opportunities to become fluent and critical readers, develop empathy and an understanding of society beyond the home and school setting, improve well-being and equip children with the skills to become lifelong learners. We believe that reading is key to developing the ability to understand the experiences of others thus, developing children’s language, social acceptance and cultural awareness. The curriculum we deliver through reading is authentic to and reflects our school’s vision and values.

Through our reading curriculum, we offer broad and rich reading experiences which provide children with engaging and purposeful learning opportunities to empower them to take ownership of their reading. We strive to introduce all children to a wide range of children’s literature and to explore ways in which reading can broaden their experience of life and give them a sense of what is possible. 

At  Manor Farm Junior School the use of high quality books within the reading curriculum is at the heart of our approach to engage and support children. Core texts are mapped out from Year 3 to Year 6 providing the opportunity for cross curricular links and a breadth of high quality children’s literature. A conscious effort is made to reflect the realities and experiences of our children as well as reflect the realities of the diverse wider community. We ensure there is a positive representation of gender, race, age, culture and religion in book choices. We ensure that our core books selection represents a full range of literature in terms of genre and text type - from non-fiction to poetry to picture books to  contemporary fiction - and have teachers who read widely and are knowledgeable about children’s literature.

We aim to create a community of readers who are captivated by their learning and curious about the opportunities it provides them with. Book groups, book fairs, interactive displays, reading competitions and book related fundraising activities are some of the ways we aim to involve the wider community, helping to create our community of readers. Rich experiences are planned for, providing pupils access to theatre, workshops, author visits, and creative projects. This supports our belief that classroom learning involving memorable experiences, real tasks, purposes and audiences will engage pupils and develop a love of learning with integrity.

We are committed to supporting children in becoming confident and articulate communicators and therefore ensure that purposeful opportunities for developing oracy skills are built into the curriculum. In order to develop our children as reflective readers and thinkers, book talk sessions are planned carefully with opportunities to share responses and opinions. We know that the more experience children have of talking about books in a structured way, the better they become at making explicit the meaning that a text holds for them - helping them, and the class as a whole, to reach a shared understanding of ideas and issues within the text.

Implementation 

Our reading curriculum encompasses phonics and the development of reading skills, comprehension, reading aloud, visits to the school library, book talk and the opportunity to share books, reading for enjoyment, home-school reading communication and developing a love of reading. The pedagogy for each of these aspects of the reading curriculum is firmly embedded across the school. 

Our reading sessions are taught for forty five minutes, four days a week. We ensure that a breadth of literature is explored through these sessions. Two of the sessions are based around book talk and developing a deeper understanding of a text, a further two of the weekly sessions focus on the development of reading skills and comprehension of what has been read earlier in the week. All of the sessions are based around the high quality core text selected for that half term. Classes visit the school library on a fortnightly basis during one of their reading sessions. ICT is used regularly to support reading planning, teaching and learning

Each day, for 10 minutes at the end of the day, the class teacher reads aloud to the children, modelling fluency, intonation and a love of reading. This text is carefully selected by the reading leader in order to stretch and challenge the children’s reading repertoire. The act of reading aloud to the class from a challenging text supports the development of the children’s spoken language comprehension and vocabulary acquisition and therefore contributes to their development as readers.

Teachers and TAs listen to children read  as often as possible in order to develop a rounded understanding of each child as a reader. Teachers and TA’s aim to hear one-to-one readers once every three weeks listening to two children at some point during the day. Vulnerable readers including disadvantaged and SEN pupils are given priority and are listened to at least once per week. 

Our children are expected to read widely and frequently at home as well as at school as we know that this supports children in developing their fluency and becoming interested readers with a good reading stamina. All children will go home daily with a reading book appropriate to their reading age or the sounds they are learning in phonics and a home-school reading record. We have a reading scheme in place to support children who join us in Y3 as well as children reading at a lower reading age than actual age. This supports children with building confidence and improving reading fluency, these children are identified from data collated from PIXL assessments, NFER reading assessments, teachers knowledge and KS1 data. Once children have made good progress on the reading scheme, they are then moved onto reading ‘real books’ which are at an appropriate reading level and interest level. 

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is the  systematic and synthetic phonics programme we use to support our reading curriculum. The Rapid Catch-up programme is used for children in Year 3 and above who are not reading at the expected level for their age. It supports children in catching up quickly, in order that they can further develop their reading skills beyond decoding and word reading. Assessments for the interventions are planned into the programme and children will be moved on when progress is clear.In Autumn term, Y3 will receive whole class phonics to ensure all gaps are closed and consolidation is provided for all learners.

PIXL assessments and data are used to identify areas for development for specific classes which are subsequently addressed with PIXL therapies; either in a whole class setting, as small groups, or independently.

Impact

At Manor Farm Junior School we firmly believe that reading is a fundamental skill and the experience of learning to read and becoming someone who reads for pleasure is invaluable. Our innovative and research led approach to the teaching of reading supports us developing excellence amongst our pupils and striving to develop an ethos and environment that excites, enthuses, inspires and values reading. Our children enjoy their reading sessions and are eager to learn and develop as readers. 

Our emphasis on decoding and developing strong skills in reading fluency will allow our children to access reading at a high level throughout their education and life after Primary School. Our clear and consistent approach to teaching reading has allowed our children to make exceptional progress, this is evident in our data which improves on a termly basis.

If you would like further information about reading at Manor Farm or how to help your child at home with their reading, please get in contact with our Deputy Head and  Reading Lead Mrs Rae krae@mfjglt.co.uk