Reading
Reading at Oakdale
Intent
At Oakdale we believe that English is the central core of our curriculum, an area that underpins all other subject areas. English promotes spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and promotes and values citizenship, through using a variety of texts where children can express a point of view, ask questions, argue and discuss. We believe that children should undertake activities which are exciting and which they can relate to their own personal experiences. Activities, which can be applied at home as well as school, are important to ensure progress.
How is reading taught?
EYFS/KS1
Little Wandle
Reading lessons throughout EYFS and KS1 also follow the 'Little Wandle' scheme.
Children are grouped and read to adults in multiple weekly sessions on 'Big Cat Little Wandle Readers' that they can phonetically decode and follow their lesson progression and assessment information- alongside 'professional judgement'.
In Year 2, children progress from the 'Big Cat Little Wandle Readers' onto the 'Little Wandle Fluency' scheme.
Here children are grouped according to fluency (speed, prosody and comprehension) and 'professional judgement'. Teachers use the planning from the 'Little Wandle Fluency' website, with appropriate adaptions to teach reading fluency and comprehension skills. Assessing and moving the children onto new levels after each assessment window.
KS2
Book Talk
Book Talk is a coherent system for teaching children to become effective readers in Key Stage 2. We encourage children’s thinking to be stretched and shaped using sentence stems which guide their responses to texts. Reading lessons are around 30 minutes long and children either read the same text as others in their group or the same whole class text. They are encouraged to read in different ways: reading around the group; paired reading and silent, independent reading. Once they have had time to read, they are encouraged to discuss their text with the use of the sentence stems, which closely replicate written comprehension questions they may encounter. These sentence stems encourage children to articulate their ideas in structured ways. They then take turns in their groups to feedback to the rest of the class about their text.
Reading Skills
Children will also be taught specific reading skills using a range of resources. These resources target key reading skills which allow children to be successful when answering written comprehension questions.
Assessment
Reading is assessed each term in school using standardised tests. We use formal assessments each term from Years 2-6. Year 1 assess using Pira tests. Statutory assessment (SATs) also takes place at the end of Year 6.
Support at home
Parents are encouraged to read with their children for at least 10 minutes each day. This can be both a mixture of listening to children read and reading to them.
Useful websites:
BBC Bitesize
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zgwwxnb
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zs44jxs
Oxford Owl