Beeches Junior School

Reading

English is a vital subject in both education and society, equipping pupils with the skills to express their thoughts and emotions fluently. A high-quality English curriculum nurtures confidence in speaking and listening while fostering meaningful connections through reading and listening.  

At Beeches Junior School, we are committed to maintaining high standards of language and literacy by providing pupils with strong spoken and written communication skills. We foster a lifelong love of reading and writing through frequent engagement with diverse, high-quality texts. Carefully selecting books for our English lessons, we ensure children are exposed to the best and most current literature, including titles that reflect modern society and celebrate a wide range of voices. By promoting inclusivity, we create a learning environment where every child feels represented, valued and inspired to explore the power of language. We strive to broaden pupils’ understanding, foster empathy, and enhance their cultural capital. As reading is a fundamental life skill, it is essential that all pupils are empowered to become confident, independent readers—capable of processing information effectively, engaging fully in their learning, and finding genuine enjoyment in the reading experience.  

Learning to read  

There are four key elements involved in reading, and each is allocated significant time in our curriculum.  

1) Phonics – which gives children the ability to decode words.  

2) Vocabulary – which helps understanding.  

3) Fluency – developing tone and intonation to help form understanding.  

4) Comprehension – the understanding of what has been read. 

Aims  

·                     Ensure all children have access to high-quality, age-appropriate literature that supports their reading development and fosters a lifelong love of books. 

·                     Engage pupils with enriching texts that deepen comprehension while developing the language, structure, and confidence required for producing articulate and effective written work. 

·                     Address the needs of all pupils to promote full inclusion and ensure that every learner can confidently develop and apply a broad range of reading skills. 

·                     Receive high-quality first teaching and effective modelling of the key skills necessary to become a proficient reader, including: 

- To give / explain the meaning of words in context 

- To retrieve and record information / identify key details from fiction and non-fiction 

-To summarise main ideas from more than one paragraph 

- To make inferences from the text / explain and justify inferences with evidence from the text 

- To predict what might happen from details stated and implied 

- To identify / explain how information / narrative content is related and contributes to meaning as a whole 

- To identify / explain how meaning is enhanced through choice of words and phrases 

- To make comparisons within the text 

- To visualise meaning 

- To Generate and ask questions 

-To Activate and apply background knowledge 

Reading with your child is imperative for their development, not just in their ability to read. Ideally, children should be reading out loud and hearing others read out loud every day for at least ten minutes.  The earlier this habit starts, the easier it is to sustain.

Children can choose from a wide range of leveled books that they can take home to read and continue to read during our daily ERIC (Everbody Reading In Class) sessions. Children are encouraged to use a range of strategies in selecting texts and are given a level that enables them to be challenged as readers yet still fluently access the text, with a limited amount of unfamiliar vocabulary.

When your child reads at home they need to complete their Beechers Brilliant Reader bookmark. If a parent is signing it, then a signature and comment are sufficient. If your child is completing the bookmark on their own then they need to answer one of the question stems (found on the front of the bookmark) in the space provided. 

5 signatures and tasks completed means your child can get a raffle ticket and a chance to win a book.

When reading with your child, if your child is struggling with any unfamiliar words, there are a range of strategies (see left) you can use with them to help them understand them. Please ensure they are understanding what they are reading. Many children can read fluently out loud without the comprehension of what they have read. One of the ways that this can be done is by using the question stems on the front of the bookmark to create questions to ask the children. 

Across the week there are typically 4 half-hour sessions that follow the VIPERS pedagogical process. This process breaks down reading comprehension into six separate areas linked closely with the national curriculums' reading content domains:

  Vocabulary                     Inference                    Prediction              Explain                    Retrieval                    Summarise

Session 1 - A short video stimulus is used to create discussions in relation to the skill to be covered during the unit.

Session 2 - Test-style questions and activities about the video from the previous day.

Session 3 - Children to read and discuss an age-expected text

Session 4 - Test-style questions and activities about the text from the previous day.

At Beeches Junior School, we recognise that reading is the avenue to a successful future so it is vital that we, as eduators, provide the correct stepping stones for a child to read fluently and be able to comprehend. Phonetical knowledge is the foundation of reading and will open doors to a child's love of reading. Little Wandle - Rapid Catch up is our chosen phonics based programme that will provide the children with the knowledge to decode at an increased speed. Children identified as working below age-related expectations will be assessed on their arrival into Beeches Junior School using the Little Wandle assessments. According to their ability, they will be grouped and will attend a daily 20 minute session. 

Children will be assessed every four weeks in all phases to ensure progress and identify gaps that need revisiting. Depending on the children's needs and gaps, groups can change to ensure that children are making the progress and moving swiftly through the programme.