The Importance of Reading
Reading is a skill that most of us take for granted, yet is one that is essential for being able to get on in life. As a child grows up, being able to read well not only enables them to discover new facts and to learn at school, but also opens them up to a world of new ideas, stories and opportunities. As research shows, children who read for pleasure will achieve more than those that don’t in later life.
All the decisions we make as a school on reading, are based on research – we are well informed and up to the minute. All our staff are committed to ensuring that all children become independent and fluent readers during their time at our school. We want our children to enjoy books as much as we do!
At Warden Hill, we are passionate about books and this love of reading is shared with all pupils. As you walk around the school, you are instantly struck by how much we love reading, from engaging books on display in the corridors, our inspiring high-quality novels shared in our ‘Class Read’ sessions to inviting book areas in each classroom. Our classroom libraries are invested in annually to ensure that we are offering our children new, exciting, language-rich, and age-appropriate books and this demonstrates our commitment to reading and developing a culture of reading for pleasure. Our teachers are also invested in reading, many being ‘Reading Teachers’, in an effort to introduce the adults in our school to new literature, both adult and children’s books alike, and to model the good reading behaviours we wish to instill in our pupils.
Our Headteacher really does lead by example and all children are aware of her love of reading, which she regularly discusses in assemblies and backs up with an office full of books! We value the importance of ensuring that our children are exposed to a wealth of books. Therefore, we have carefully selected books that represent different abilities, cultures, beliefs, appropriate age content as well as offering challenge to readers in all year groups in both poetry, fiction and non-fiction alike. We have created, a progressive list of books for all classes with Class Reads, recommended books for class libraries as well as Guided Reading and Whole Class Reading texts. Offering a diverse Reading curriculum ensures that we are supporting all our children in finding titles that they can read and connect with on some level, while affirming their own cultural identities and hopefully developing important, positive insights about others.
The joy of reading
We work hard to ensure this joy of reading extends beyond the classroom and support, promote and value the contributions that parents and carers make to their child’s reading at home. We enjoy taking our children to the Cheltenham Literature Festival each year and organise visiting authors to talk to our pupils and further ignite their interest in books. A highlight of our year is World Book Day, which we celebrate in style! Our teachers really do relish in the opportunity to delve deeper into a book and explore exciting links with other subjects.
Progression of reading through the school
Our love of reading begins from the very first day a child begins at our school; all our Reception children receive a book from us to welcome them to our school and begin their reading experience. Our structured approach to reading is carefully designed to ensure the best results for our children. As the children move through KS1, phonics remains a high priority and is taught daily. Daily guided reading sessions, in Reception and Year 1, and Whole Class Reading sessions, from Year 2 to 6, focus on higher order reading skills and the development of vocabulary. Children work through our fully decodable reading scheme and read frequently with an adult in school. As their reading progresses, we work on developing a pupil’s vocabulary and comprehension skills through structured whole class guided reading sessions. Activities are carefully planned to ensure that reading stamina also develops as children progress through the school.
Class Reads
How could we encourage and inspire all readers, even the reluctant ones, to get into a good book?
We sat together as an English team and pondered this question. We knew from our research that if we could read to our children daily and ensure that the time spent doing this was to be between 15 – 30 mins, we were onto a winner. We emphasised the importance of this ring-fenced time during the day. We are sure that we have in place a diverse ‘Class Read’ reading curriculum where the children sit, listen and are transported to different cultures, experiences and storylines, but above all of this, every child ‘sees’ themselves in the books too.
The class novels have all been chosen for their high quality and high interest to a range of readers. The fact that the class teacher is reading it to the children means that even the lowest 20% of each class are whisked away and immersed in the stories between the pages. The impact of this feature of our reading curriculum has been huge – children asking parents to buy them the books or to use birthday money to buy the class novels too – and yes – even our hardest to reach children have been part of this book love!
Reading Journals
Another way we foster reading for pleasure and oracy.
The children receive a Reading Journal task question each week, that is to be completed at home in note form, ready for a discussion in class the following week. The purpose behind this is to motivate and inspire the children in delving deep into book talk and discuss their ideas with their peers, supported by our ABC of discussion. Children are encouraged to Agree with, Build upon, and at times, Challenge (ABC) others’ ideas, to really probe elements of the books that are being shared. All voices are heard and yet again, it promotes the love of books. Maybe they’ll want to pick it up and read it for themselves.
Our children do not make the progress they do without a ‘team’ approach. Parents and our teaching team work closely together to ensure the very best outcomes for our pupils.
