Reading at White Mere Primary School

Reading is such a fundamental skill. It brings us joy and fulfillment as well as access to a wide range of opportunities throughout life. At White Mere Primary School, we therefore do all we can to ensure all children read fluently and with confidence by the time they leave us for secondary school.

Our curriculum for reading consists of two elements: word reading and comprehension. Different kinds of teaching are needed for each.

Phonics

Skilled word reading involves speedy decoding and automatic recognition of words.  For this, we use our Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) program. Children begin this in the first week of Reception (following time spent listening to and producing sounds, including specific voice sounds, and oral blending and segmenting in Nursery).  Each week, they learn new letter-sound correspondences and how to read these in words.  They bring home a Decodable Reader to practise the letters and sounds they have learned.  Children will normally have completed this program by the end of Year 1.  They use the rest of Year 1 and Year 2 to practise and apply their knowledge within their reading to become more fluent.

Parents, Carers and keen Grandparents can use the following videos to brush up on their letter sounds so we help provide consistency for the children. Health warning – Tara is a wonderful force of nature, so feel free to do three at a time and press pause whilst you practice. Please do not be tempted to use the videos with the children, to check or whiz ahead. ELS provides a carefully crafted pathway through phonetic decoding and it is important that the children move through sounds in line with daily teaching. Working together, as we do, we feel ELS will offer children the structure to learn to read well, quickly and confidently.

Phase 2 Sounds

Phase 3 Sounds

Comprehension

In this area the focus is on understanding and making sense of what is read, as well as developing a keen interest and thorough pleasure in reading.  We develop these skills and positive attitudes through high-quality discussion reading a wide range of stories, poems and non-fiction from authors through time, across the globe and representative of the fabric of society we live in.  In Early Years and Year 1 and 2, we use quality texts from our Baskets of Books for this in addition to other books within our wider curriculum.  In Years 3 to 6, our carefully chosen class ‘book shelves’ provide children with a knowledge of writers and genres so that they are better able to make their own choices about what they read.  To support children’s acquisition of specific comprehension skills, we teach whole class guided reading daily from Year 2 onwards.  Carefully selected texts build upon comprehension through close focus on:

– context of what is read (background/world knowledge, social, cultural and historical understanding)

– vocabulary (breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge, high quality text-talk, and linguistic features)

– text structure (cohesion across the text, organisation and layout)

– syntax (word order, grammar and sentence structure)

To keep up a buzz around books and foster a love of reading, we also use ensure we share a class reader every day. Again these are carefully chosen to foster a love of books as well as exposing children to new vocabulary and ideas.  

Reading has the highest priority in school. We want to make sure that every child reads widely and often.  As our children progress from word reading to becoming fluent readers we use Accelerated Reader to develop understanding and comprehension of a wide range of texts.  By using Accelerated Reader we are able to track children’s reading habits, develop a diagnostic approach to comprehending texts and promote a love of reading that remains with children throughout their lives.   To add further to this children have rewards built into their personalised progress targets for reading at least 20 minutes a day and maintaining high standards of progress through regular quizzes. 

We also ensure that children hear and have access to a variety of carefully chosen texts encompassing:

• Curriculum enrichment and enhancement- extending and deepening our learning throughout our Dimensions topics.
• Diversity and inclusion- celebrating every person and challenging stereotypes.
• Fun, fun, fun- reading for pleasure and sheer enjoyment. 
• Local pride- capitalizing on the fantastic North East of England and the talented authors we have.

Our Reading Rivers demonstrate this immersion into the world of reading and are regularly updated. 

DEAR: Drop Everything And Read

Every week children have the opportuntiy to bring in their own materials to read or can choose something in school. To compliment this, and to explore whole-school themes presented in assemblies further, children have access to themed book baskets. These baskets contain a selection of books about a particular topic, world issue or aspect of society and are written by a range of authors. 

Writing at White Mere

Competent readers make competent writers.  We capitalise on our dedication to reading to produce writers who can use the basic skills of punctuation accurately, spell correctly and be mindful of the effect their writing is trying to have and to whom they are writing for. 

From Year 1 to Year 6 we have carefully mapped out a writing bookshelf that contains a wide and diverse range of texts and genres to support our writing journey.  In each year group the children encounter a balance of fiction, non-fiction and poetry led by quality model texts selected to broaden our pupils’ writing skills, enrich their enjoyment of being authors and varying their points of view of the changing world around them. 

To maximise progress we use writing toolkits designed to use the model texts as a basis for teaching exactly what is required from a genre of writing.  Grammar and punctuation are explicitly taught to allow the children to experience the fundamentals of writing and how it can be constructed to produce rich pieces of work.  Spelling is taught throughout the week at every phase once children are secure in their phonics.  The highest handwriting standards are maintained through the use of the Letter-join progressive scheme.       

Example of a writing toolkit: