Reading at Edith Moorhouse Primary School

Reading has become a really strong focus in our school curriculum. Our reading curriculum is deliberately ambitious and designed to give all pupils, including SEND and PP, the knowledge they need to become confident and accomplished readers. Reading is prioritised to allow all pupils, including SEND and PP, to access our full curriculum offer. 

By the time children leave our school, most are accomplished readers for learning, as well as readers for pleasure. In addition to this we have developed a culture of story time and storytelling in our Early Years.

After revamping our Phonics teaching and provision and investing heavily in the Rocket Phonics Systematic Synthetic Phonics scheme in 2021, we have witnessed a significant improvement in reading, writing and phonics screening results across Reception and Key Stage 1. Teachers, Teaching Assistants and Pupils are all engaging enthusiastically with the scheme and there is a real ‘buzz’ around the school with children eager to read and to write. We are now rolling out this programme to Key Stage 2 to support children who are still not working at the expected level. 

Rocket Phonics has been designed for whole class teaching. Children are supported in Reception to keep up with the class as much as possible. Phonics is everywhere in the learning environment and teachers utilise any appropriate moments for revising sounds covered and for going over flashcards as well as segmenting and blending practise whenever possible. Formal assessment is carried out each term and where children are not working at the expected level from Year 1 upwards, they are each prescribed an individual phonics programme to support them with their learning at a pace that is most suited to them.

A weekly programme of monitoring covers teaching and learning, interventions, reading book allocation and suitability, planning and pupil voice. Feedback is given in a timely manner with follow-up conversations taking place when beneficial. All teachers and teaching assistants in school have received bespoke training for the scheme with ongoing training continuing to ensure the scheme is delivered using a consistent approach across the school. The funding from the National Tutoring Program  is being used for phonics tutoring where appropriate to support children in Key Stage 2 who require phonics interventions. 

Children read regularly in school, some children read daily, others twice weekly. All children read to class teachers as well as to Teaching Assistants. Reading takes a variety of forms including; whole class, small group and individual reading. Rocket Phonics Target Reader books are used for group reading, aligned to individual need, across Reception and Year 1. Monitoring ensures reading books are consistent with phonics knowledge.

To ensure children are fully accessing high quality texts, the Opening Doors English strategy is being implemented, enabling demanding texts to become accessible to all children. This approach has been adopted across the whole school with enthusiasm for reading clearly growing.  

Texts for whole class reading across the school have been carefully selected to be progressive in terms of complexity of reading content and developmental in terms of reading challenge. Teachers model reading on a daily basis. Children are read to every day by the class teacher. All children benefit from hearing a story, text or poem, which is chosen to provide exposure to richer vocabulary. Classes are also sharing a poem each day with children in Upper Key Stage 2 enthusiastically choosing their poems to share on a daily basis. This is contributing to developing reading fluency, which is supporting our children with fluency to read in their learning. 

To ensure all children, including SEND and PP, have the opportunity to develop a love of reading we:

• Regularly discuss books that we are reading (teachers and children)
• Pitch independent reading material to the decoding and the comprehension ability of the child
• Hold events such as ‘Book at Bedtime’ 
• Promote the benefits of stories and ‘reading together’ at home for children in the Early Years. 

To encourage a love of reading further we will be:

• Setting reading challenges across the school to promote and celebrate all reading 
• Providing spaces for children to read by themselves during their lunch break (outdoor classroom)
• Setting up a lunchtime reading and writing club
• Providing information about new choices of reading material on a regular basis 
• Purchasing a Toni box to make reading accessible to children who have specific needs.
• Setting up an audio book library to increase accessibility of texts for children
• Setting up a portable book trolley library
• Setting up outdoor libraries in Pre-school and Reception which will be accessible to parents and children
• Setting up Class Story Sacks for children to take home on a rotational basis

Reading at Home is strongly encouraged throughout the school. Parents are encouraged to hear younger children to read on a daily basis and supported in how best to do this at an introductory meeting for parents of Reception children. 

Reading books in Reception are changed twice weekly, allowing the children to read each book three times and then to answer comprehension questions from the back of each book. Children also have the opportunity to complete an associated activity sheet for each book that they read. Parents are generally very supportive but where this is not happening, children are targeted more frequently to read at school. Children who are not reading at the expected level in Reception read daily in school. Children in Reception are encouraged to take books home for their parents to read with them. These can be changed as often as required.

Vocabulary and oracy are highly promoted throughout the whole school with discussions and vocabulary work being a key part of all lessons. Vocabulary Ninja is being adopted throughout the school to ensure a progressive approach.  

Class texts have been carefully chosen to ensure depth of rich language, matched to the age of the children. In choosing texts, interests of the children are taken into consideration and supplementary linked texts, including poetry are suggested to support reading content contained within class text.

The Impact of our Reading Curriculum:

• Many children develop strong phonic knowledge 
• Reading books connect closely to the phonics knowledge pupils are taught when learning to read
• Children are familiar with a wide range of traditional and non-traditional stories 
• Children can make a plausible prediction about a text based on the information already gained
• Children know how to retrieve information from a text
• Children are using and understanding a wider repertoire of vocabulary in their everyday school talk 
• Children can talk about books they have read
• Children are keen to read new reading material 
• All children, including SEND and PP, can apply what they know, and can do with increasing fluency and independence in reading as they progress through the school 
• Children enjoy the stories read to them by the class teacher 
• Children are developing a love of reading and are becoming readers for learning 
• Teachers present subject matter clearly, promoting appropriate discussion
• Teachers check understanding and misconceptions in reading lessons, and provide group and class feedback and then adapt their future teaching as necessary. For example, spending more or less time explaining key vocabulary 

Our future aims:

• All children will develop strong phonic knowledge 
• Children will be able to share books and book talk during their lunchtimes 
• Children will tell us they love reading 
• More children will volunteer to read aloud 
• Children will become more fluent and expressive when they read aloud 
• Children will read more widely and more often, resulting in increased fluency and comprehension appropriate to their age. 

Reading Shed

We are absolutely delighted with our new outdoor library - reading shed. We had a grand opening on Thursday 18th January with the help of our Year 6 Reading Shed Volunteers. Within minutes of its opening the children were choosing books to read and making good use of it, spending even more time reading for pleasure. At Edith Moorhouse, we want all our children to have a love of books and this is just one of the many ways that we aim to foster a passion for reading. 

Whilst an outdoor library is fantastic, we are currently in the process of planning and fundraising for a new whole school library to support our drive to get every child reading and loving books.

The Children's Book Project

Edith Moorhouse are active members of The Children's Book Project. This is a national charity that believes every child should have access to quality books, as do we. To learn more about this charity, visit https://childrensbookproject.co.uk/receive-books/

This scheme runs entirely on kindness of local families and businesses donating pre-loved books.  

World Book Day

World Book Day is a charity event held every year on the first Thursday in March. At Edith Moorhouse we celebrate World Book Day in a variety of ways. We encourage reading for pleasure and support this cause to provide every child with a book of their own. 

World Book Day Website  

At Edith Moorhouse Primary School, our dream is to build a new school library that will provide access space and expertise to support children in their reading journey. An effective school library has been proven to have a positive, long-term impact for children. Libraries also provide safe spaces and contribute to positive wellbeing for all. Visit the Library Project page to follow our journey. 

Read For Good

During March, the whole school were invited to take part in a charity 'Readathon' to support Read for Good. We are pleased to say a total of £901.51 was raised.