“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.” Roald Dahl
Why teach reading?
At Bude Primary Academy Juniors reading is at the heart of our curriculum. We believe reading is a fundamental skill that, has to be taught and needs to be loved by all. We believe that reading should offer a life-long journey of fulfilment and gateway to future possibilities.
How do we teach reading?
We use VIPERS to ensure all skills are taught and we develop specific aspects of pupils’ comprehension and understanding. These lessons use a combination of class novels (which are read to the class daily for 20 minutes) and extracts as a stimulus for deeper thinking and link fiction and non-fiction texts to these in order to further develop contextual knowledge and understanding. In addition to these lessons, curriculum projects in KS2 are based on a series of non-fiction texts, with these being used as part of a wider curriculum approach.
In KS2, we expect all pupils to be ready for the whole-class reading sessions that are undertaken daily for 20 minutes. The focus here is on vocabulary development, the development of specific reading skills and immersion in a wide range of texts.
Pupils will continue to access the RWI programme in Year 3 if their decoding skills are not secure at the end of KS1.
Furthermore, KS2 writing lessons are based on an approach that focuses on the development of word- and sentence-level understanding, with many of the activities making use of skills that will enhance pupils’ comprehension of written language.
We also aim to promote reading for pleasure as this itself plays a major role within reading development. We are aware that promoting reading in this way can also provide our pupils with a creative outlet and an alternative to the digital distractions that can affect their personal wellbeing.
All pupils have opportunities for differentiated shared reading and independent reading throughout the school day alongside working together in guided groups or as a whole class on detailed explorations of whole books and shorter texts.
What difference does learning to read make?
Have the fundamental skills needed to be able to read.
Be passionate about reading, developing positive attitudes and understanding what they have read.
Talk positively about books and recommend them.
Understand how to infer, retrieve, predict, summarise and explain.
Leave us with the necessary skills to access the reading and vocabulary demands of the secondary curriculum and for them to be successful communicators throughout their lives.