Reading
During this period of lockdown we would encourage any parents to promote reading to their children, either by reading with them, or by signposting them to books they may like through the document we have produced below (scroll down to the last section of this page), or other online facilities such as Amazon Kindle or Google Books (which aren't free - don't give your children your passwords!).
The National Literacy Trust also has a range of resources that parents can use if anyone would like to look - please click on the link (below, left).
How we teach and support phonics and reading at Crosthwaite Primary School:
Click here: Curriculum information for parents
Developing fluent and motivated readers is a priority for our school. We recognise that being able to read underpins all other learning. The teaching of reading at Crosthwaite starts in Nursery where adults share books with the children each day to develop their enjoyment of reading, speaking and listening skills and their understanding of the different stories, songs and poems. They are also encouraged to take a library book home to share with their families.
Throughout EYFS and Key Stage One children have regular phonics sessions that assist them to recognise letters, understand the sound they make and blend these sounds together to create words. Letter-sound correspondence is taught through a highly structured synthetic phonic approach, utilising aspects of the ‘Jolly Phonics’ and ‘Letters and Sounds’ schemes of work. Alongside this children learn to instantly recognise by sight the most common words in the English language. Many of these words are not phonically regular and it is important that they develop automation in their sight vocabulary. They see a word and instantly recognise it, without trying to sound it out. This automatic sight recognition of common words is crucial, as they appear so regularly in all the texts they encounter.
Our graded reading scheme – which incorporates a range of books from different highly evaluated series introduces children to new words gradually. Reading deliberately patterned, simple, repetitive grammatical structures helps children to achieve early success. This success creates confidence – an essential prerequisite for ongoing, successful learning. Our belief at Crosthwaite is that when learning to read the emphasis should be on small successful steps to promote confidence and enjoyment. Children gain confidence when seeing sounds and words they already recognise in text which they can then decode successfully.
Children will continue to progress through our school reading scheme. Volunteers and teaching assistants will read with children individually each week. The class teacher will hear children read within a group each week and individually each half term. Emphasis in Key Stage One is given to Guided Reading sessions, where children learn important reading skills, comprehension and complete follow up work, and also on reading independence. From the beginning of year 1 children will be taught how to monitor their own reading progress and to change their own reading books when required.
In Years 3 to 6 children take part in regular Guided Reading sessions in differentiated group or class situations. We aim to foster a lifelong love of reading. Children have opportunities to read independently and are encouraged to read a wide range of books as much and as often as possible. Volunteers, teaching assistants and class teachers support and teach both group and individual reading. Children are also encouraged to take part in national and regional competitions to boost their enjoyment and achievement in reading and annual challenges will be set to promote reading, a love of it, and the study and enjoyment of a wide range of genres by all ages.
