Reading
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Reading in Early Years to Key Stage 1:
Building a love of reading at an early age has a proven impact on a child’s learning, social skills, language development and engagement. It is not confined to reading specific books or even reading every night. The more you read with your child the more they learn from you. Strategies like using pictures to create stories and making up stories on your own will help inspire your child to explore many aspects of reading. The most important thing for children to learn is that reading is fun, it can be a lifelong passion, this skill will help them throughout their lives and that text comes in many different varieties that anyone can access and enjoy. At St. Luke’s we stress the importance of creating that early love of reading and exposing children to reading in many ways to allow them to find their own excitement and enthusiasm about reading.
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Daily Supported Reading
At St. Luke’s, we aim to address the many different ways children develop the ability to read as well as fostering a love of reading. Daily Supported Reading (DSR) works alongside our phonics programme to provide children with the opportunity to use their phonic knowledge to sound out words, while also giving the children a bank of other reading strategies.
DSR is a programme that provides children with the opportunity to read daily in small focus groups of no more than 6 children to one adult. The small group focus is what makes this time so special to the children, as they are able to share their accomplishments in these groups and receive constant support and feedback throughout the session.
Children are introduced to a text every 2 days and are able to listen to it being told, read the story independently to an adult, construct sentences from the book and explore the text through questions and retelling. In small groups, reading at the right level for them, children rapidly develop their comprehension of the text they are reading. Children are constantly assessed and moved on quickly through this scheme.
DSR begins half-way through the Reception year and runs through until your child is a fluent reader. They are then moved into a new programme called Destination Reader.
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Phonics
At St. Luke’s all children from Nursery to Year 2 have a daily, fun and interactive phonics session. We use Jolly Phonics, as it is an interactive, fun and musical way into the world of phonics. Each day begins with a Jolly Phonics session in Reception and Year 1 as it feeds into their other lessons that involve reading and writing. The children respond well and recall the songs and actions for each sound. In Nursery, the children will begin Phonics in January through singing and games.
Reception - Year 2 enjoy daily sessions where they learn:
· Phonemes and Graphemes
· Blending and segmenting
· Grammar sessions for years 1-2
· Spellings of tricky words
· Reading
We use word banks, sentences for reading as well as texts that focus on the sounds they have recently learned. Children have access to a wide range of phonically decodable books to enable them to transfer their learning of Phonics into fluent reading that they enjoy.
This programme is a fun and active way to get all children involved in phonics!
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Please click here for a phonics presentation with further information.
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Library
Children are able to choose a book that excites them and take it home to share with the family. This is completely aimed at igniting a love of reading. Class texts are used to enhance their writing and engage them in the process. These books provide the connection between reading, writing, grammar, phonics and imagination. The planning focuses for 3-4 weeks on a single text, allowing them to explore multiple aspects of each story. Class reading books are chosen by the school to allow children to experience new and exciting texts that are above their reading levels. It is another time for them to sit back, listen, question and truly enjoy different aspects of reading.
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Bug Club
This is a new programme we will be introducing that will offer families a collection of online books that children and families can share at their own pace. This excites children with the chance to win coins towards a game as they read and answer questions about their text. (more information to come).
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Reading in Key Stage 2:
Reading is at the heart of all our learning across the curriculum. Our aim is to support children in developing their reading by exposing them to as many different reading genres as possible, while fostering excitement and love for reading. Here is an overview of how your child is being supported with their reading in Key Stage 2:
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Destination Reader
The focus of every reading session is about generating excitement and love for reading. The children have a Destination Reader session every day and it lasts for about 40 minutes. During reading sessions, children are taught skills to help them develop a deeper understanding of what is being read. Children take part in class and group discussion. Key skills include: clarifying, predicting, asking questions, inference, making connections and summarising.
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Accelerated Reader
Accelerated Reader is a way of bench marking children to ensure that they have an appropriate reading book to support their development. Children take an initial reading test based around their reading comprehension skills. Then children are given their reading level and have the opportunity to take out a second library book that is within their reading level. We will be encouraging the children to bring these books home to read with an adult. After children read their book, they will take a short comprehension quiz based on the book. This process will continue until the end of each term so that children have a chance to read a variety of books. At the end of each term, they will then take another bench marking test to reassess their reading level. At parents evening, teachers will go over the results of these quizzes in more detail. We will also be setting up parent profiles so that you can login at home and see how your child is engaging with reading. Our aim is to support the children in developing their love of reading by making sure that the books they are reading are appropriately pitched.
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Library
Children visit the school's library weekly, where they have the opportunity to select a book that interests them.
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Class Texts
Children’s English topics are linked to exciting books. The children produce lively pieces of writing based around different genres and characters.
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Reading all year groups:
Class Story
We ask our teachers to read with all children in the school, every day. The class story is often linked to class topics and is slightly more challenging than the class text. Studies have shown that reading to children, even if they are independent readers, supports them in developing a greater range of vocabulary, which is important when the children are reading on their own.
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