English Reading

At Whittingham Academy, we believe that every child deserves and has the right to become a competent reader. We aim to build a love for reading and allow children to go on a journey by exposing them to high-quality, diverse, and age-appropriate texts. We also endeavour to enrich children’s speaking and listening skills, build confidence through reading and encourage our children to be critical readers. Reading is a fundamental part of Whittingham’s curriculum as it has been described as the skill that allows children to access all area of the curriculum. Our intent is to promote a love of reading for all pupils whilst creating life-long readers who have the skills to access all areas of the curriculum with independence and confidence so that they go on to be successful in Key Stage 3, 4 and beyond. 

At Whittingham Academy, we want our children to: 

• Become fluent, confident, and expressive readers who have both the skill and the will to read effectively 
• Read with enjoyment across a range of genres 

• Read for pleasure as well as for information 
• Read and respond to a wide range of different types of literature 
• Understand the layout and how to use different genres and text types 
• Understand and apply their knowledge of phonics and spelling patterns and use this to decode words with accuracy 
• Have an interest in words and their meanings, developing a rich and varied vocabulary 

In Nursery we immerse children in activities providing opportunities to tune into sounds. There are six aspects taught:

• Environmental Sounds 
• Instrumental Sounds 
• Body Percussion
• Rhythm and Rhyme
• Alliteration  
• Voice Sounds

We use short discrete group session to explore and teach a variety of the six aspects. During the Summer Term, children in Nursery will access more formal teaching of phonics through the delivery of the RWI (Read, Write, Inc) Nursery programme. 

Reception and Year 1 

In the Early Years and Year 1, pupils will receive more formal lessons taught using the Read, Write, Inc Synthetic Phonic Programme. All our staff are highly trained and receive regular coaching to deliver this. It is taught daily, systematically both to whole class at the correct phonological stage and to discrete groups.  

• Children begin by learning Set 1 single sounds and blending sound together to read a word (c-a-t). 
• They then move on to learn Set 2, 3 and 3+ sounds and apply them to read words (s-p-r-ay).  

• Children are taught to work effectively with a partner to explain and consolidate what they are learning. This provides the teacher with opportunities to assess learning and to pick up on children who are excelling or struggling.   
• Children are assessed every 6 weeks and grouped correctly according to their progress in reading.  
• Staff ensure that children read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and the ‘red words’. This is so that, early on, they experience success and gain confidence that they are readers. Please trust your child’s teacher to choose the book(s) that will help your child the most. 
• Children who are not making the expected level of progress in phonics and reading will have one to one or small group interventions to ensure they are making sufficient progress.  
• Children new to English in Key Stage 2 will be taught to read using the Read, Write Inc. Fresh Start programme.

Years 2 - 6 

In Years 2-6, reading is taught through whole-class guided reading sessions which take place 5 times a week. Whole-class reading is a teacher-led session to build understanding and comprehension. Children are given the same core text and asked to practise a specific reading skill which reflects the National Curriculum requirements including: 

• retrieval 
• inference 
• summarising 

• prediction 
• vocabulary 
• commentating  
• authorial choice. 

Whole Class Guided Reading is an approach which helps pupils to truly explore the text. In every session, children are exposed to a range of high-quality texts, book discussion, and teacher modelling. The deep conversations they facilitate are pivotal to children’s development as readers.  

Reading for Pleasure: 

All pupils are read to by an enabling adult on a daily basis during ‘Class Reader’ time. This time is protected as we believe it is vital in developing a love of reading and the will to read independently and by choice. In these daily sessions, staff read aloud books at a higher level than the ability of the pupils to the whole class. They read with passion and excellent fluency modelling what makes a good reader. Staff select books that promote cultural capital and engage the interests of the pupils they teach. 

All children, from Nursery to Year 6, visit our school’s well stocked library each week. The children return their library books and get a new book each week, the focus of these sessions is for children to choose a book to develop a love of reading. Time in class is dedicated to reading for enjoyment.  Each classroom has a selection of books in their classroom which were chosen by the children. 

Through the quality teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. Children can then focus on developing fluency and comprehension as they approach Key Stage Two. Attainment in phonics is measured through ongoing assessment throughout the Read, Write, Inc programme; Key Stage One Phonics Screening Check; and the Early Learning Goals.   

Formative and summative assessments are used to inform the planning and teaching of reading. We use reading comprehensions, Year 2 and 6 SATs and termly PIRA assessments from Years 1 – 6. These are analysed using MARK online and Shine Interventions are used for pupils identified as a result of this analysis. Children complete half-termly STAR Reader Tests to provide an accurate picture of their ZPD (zone of proximal development) and reading age. 

However, at Whittingham, we firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments. Our vision is all pupils have a genuine interest and love for reading. This will be seen through their increased confidence when discussing books that they have read and have the ability to unpick key elements from a text.