Reading at Haslucks Green Junior School
How is Reading Taught in Our School?
Reading is at the heart of our Literacy curriculum. All of our bespoke Literacy units are text based - using a range of carefully selected core texts, as well as linked supplementary books, to immerse pupils in a holistic reading experience.
Children are given a variety of opportunities to read across the curriculum and in different contexts including individual reading time, reading with other children or adults, guided reading and whole class shared reading. Reading has a high profile in other subject areas and this work contributes to the collection of evidence we use to assess reading. Children in Years 5 and 6 also have dedicated lessons in answering SATs style questions. We also have a special reading unit in each year group that is rich in social, moral, cultural or spiritual themes.
Building reading skills is at the heart of our curriculum. To ensure that our pupils become the best readers that they can be, we employ a range of strategies to help them on their learning journey.
We build into our Literacy units of work, as well as our guided reading sessions, a VIPERS reading approach. The VIPERS approach is structured as follows:
- Vocabulary
- Infer
- Predict
- Explain
- Retrieve
- Summarise
We also support our pupils in developing their reading skills through our use of a range of metacognitive reading strategies, allowing pupils to take charge of their reading and develop their ability to monitor their own comprehension of a text. We engage pupils in this by using an ACTIVE approach in our unit work as follows:
- Ask Questions (including -What do I think this will be about?-making predictions)
- Connect and Clarify
- Track down (the main points to summarise)
- Infer
- Visualise
- Evaluate
The Home School Partnership:
Home reading has a high profile in school. We offer a structured reading scheme (Big Cats) when the children enter the school and a broad range of Fiction and Non-Fiction in our school lending library. Children use a reading diary to record home reading and these are closely monitored. Children participate in our own 'Really Broad Reading Award' scheme to encourage children to read a broad range of text types and genres. Parents are regularly involved in reviewing reading habits in discussions with teachers.
Supporting your Year 3 reader using VIPERS
Supporting your Year 4 reader using VIPERS
Supporting your Year 5 reader using VIPERS
Supporting your Year 6 reader using VIPERS
Developing Passionate Readers at Haslucks Green:
We offer special reading events each term that are devoted to reading including special assemblies to motivate children to read and celebrate successes, participation in various online workshops led by new and established authors, librarian visits to lead assemblies and share stories. We also hold author visits and 'Book days' or 'Book Weeks' as well as 'Storytellers’ Week'. Further to this, we have developed links with the publishers 'Candy Jar Books' and our pupils provide work and book reviews of new publications for their newsletters.
We regularly celebrate our readers. A 'Reader of the Month' is selected every month in each class and all children who complete the Bronze, Silver and Gold level Really Broad Reading Award are acknowledged with a certificate in our weekly 'Celebration' assembly.
At Haslucks Green, we are fortunate enough to have a dedicated library space in school which is managed by our Head Librarian Ms Hands and her team of Year 5 librarians. Each half term we have a specific reading theme to help ensure that our pupils are exposed to a wider range of genres. Each class has dedicated library time when they can use the library to develop library skills and familiarise themselves with the books on offer. Teachers and TAs can also help pupils to select books for their pleasure.
Our 3pm daily story time also offers an opportunity for children to listen to their teacher read a longer text to them. Modelling reading is crucial for children when developing their own skills. Books are carefully selected by each year group to ensure progression across school. Below is a link to the reading spines followed by each year group.
Bronze Really Broad Reading Award
Silver Really Broad Reading Award
Gold Really Broad Reading Award
Platinum Really Broad Reading Award
Useful links:
https://www.booksfortopics.com/
Haslucks Green Reading Policy SMSC Reading List Stories From Other Cultures Reading List
