Reading

Reading at Lacewood

At Lacewood we acknowledge that when our children arrive in full-time school, they bring with them a wealth of pre-school experiences. They have been developing their language skills through talking about everyday activities; sharing favourite stories and books; using their imagination in role play; noticing letters on road signs; recognising shops or restaurants by their logos. These are just a few experiences which serve to provide a firm foundation for children learning to read, giving them an understanding that print contains a message; that pictures are story-telling clues; that we move along a line of text from left to right.

Marie Clay describes reading as ‘… a message-getting, problem-solving activity.’ From the moment a child starts at Lacewood School, we start to build on the experiences and skills they already own, equipping them for this ‘message-getting, problem-solving’ process.

 

Foundation/Key Stage 1

Children first learn their letter sounds and names then apply these to word building. We use Read Write Inc. for our teaching of phonics. This is a recognised  synthetic phonic scheme. The children also learn a variety of other key words by sight.

Children read individually, in small groups and as a whole class. A variety of different genres are chosen at an appropriate level of ability for each group of children. As well as being able to read the text, children are encouraged to discuss the content of the book, and their opinions about people, places and events are sought. The more able readers will be asked about the varied themes of different texts.

Children who are still accessing the RWi programme, are provided with reading books that match the current level of phonics being taught in their groups. 

A range of reading schemes are used throughout school e.g. Oxford Reading Tree, Storyworlds, PM books, Wolf Hill and a variety of chapter books as children become more confident in their reading. The books are banded into levels using a nationally published book banding system to ensure books are levelled correctly and appropriately.

 

Key Stage 2

Through independent reading, shared reading in literacy lessons and cross-curricular sessions, guided groups, reading comprehension and reading for pleasure, reading in Key Stage 2 develops and extends the skills acquired in Key Stage 1.

Children explore a wide variety of genres, both fiction and non-fiction which allows them to access, input ideas and understand what they are reading. They are given opportunities to speculate on the tone and purpose of texts they explore as well as to consider both the themes and audience.

Over the last three years over 90% of our children have reached or exceeded the required reading standard by the end of their primary education.

 

 

Please visit our 'Helping Your Child to Learn' page for useful resources to use at home.