Literacy

From the very start, children are encouraged to have a love of books and reading. Word reading skills are taught through the Read, Write, Inc approach supported by a wide range of home readers, books and texts. Comprehension skills are taught through a range of individual, group and whole class teaching where teachers use VIPERS to develop the children’s skills across the range of abilities.

To see the progression of skills in Reading from EYFS to Year 6, please see below:

EYFS Reading Curriculum

Year 1 2 Reading Curriculum

Year 3 4 Reading Curriculum

Year 5 6 Reading Curriculum

Early Reading

Phonics Read Write Inc    

We use the Read Write Inc programme in Reception and Key Stage 1. This programme includes a systematic and dynamic whole-school approach to teaching phonics. This programme is supplemented by a wide range of other reading materials that the children use at home and at school. Children in Key Stage 1 follow a phonics programme that supports their individual reading level.

For more detailed guidance and resources, please visit out Early Reading and Phonics page.

Home Reading

While children in Reception and Key Stage 1 access Read Write Inc Book Bag books as their home reader, once they have completed Read Write Inc, they progress into the bridging Oxford Reading Tree levels of white and lime. 
Children in Years 3 and 4, who still require phonics intervention, will take Read Write Inc Book Bags home until they have completed Read Write Inc grey level. After this, they will move onto Oxford Reading Tree brown level 8 reading books. 
In Key Stage 2, children take home two reading books; a leveled home reading book which reflects their reading ability and a library book which children can select from their year group library. For home readers, children progress through the Oxford Reading Levels, beginning at Level 8 through to Level 20. These books stem across a wide range of genres including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, classics and graphic novels. 

Please see below for the full Oxford Reading Level progression below:

KS1 Reading Book Progression

KS2 Reading Book Progression

Oxford Owl Reading Levels

Each child in Years 1-6 also receive a Reading Miles Passport. Every time they read their home reading book with an adult at home or school, they receive a tick on their passport. As children read regularly, they travel to different countries on their passport, with the end of goal of travelling around the world. As a reward for reaching this milestone and reading regularly, children can select a book of their choice which school purchase.

2017 07 25 free resource reading miles passport.pdf

Class Reading

VIPERS focus on the teaching of the following reading skills; Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval and Summarise (KS2)/Sequence (KS1). When teaching reading in a whole class context, teachers may focus on practising one skill in isolation or more than one depending on the text used.
In addition, in KS2 we have regular comprehension lessons where children read unfamiliar texts across a range of genres and answer comprehension questions.

In KS2, we complete ERIC (Every Child Reading In Class) time each day, focusing on a range of reading skills with time for reading for pleasure.

Whole School Reading Spine

High quality class texts have been chosen and compiled in a Reading Spine to challenge and inspire children’s thinking and is a driver for the teaching of writing and grammar, punctuation and spelling. 

Recommended Readers

In addition, we also have a list of suggested high-quality reading books for each year group called our ‘Recommended Readers’. As with the Whole School Literacy Overview, these books have been carefully selected for children to read at home and span across different genres and include a range of topics. We highly encourage our children to read frequently at home and record any home reading in our reading records.

Please view our ‘Recommended Readers’ below for each year group. If you would like further suggestions of books for your children to read at home, please contact the class teacher.

Each class has a copy of the recommended reading books in class as part of our reading areas. Our children enjoy writing book reviews of the books they have read, recommending them to others in the class and we also display them in our school library. Our wonderful school library contains many books including those from much loved children’s authors and books of every genre. Our children enjoy reading their books in the library or in our other reading areas both inside school and outside in our designated reading area within the cabin. Children also regularly have the opportunity to take library books home to enjoy. 

In addition, our upper KS2 children have access to an online website called Reading Plus. This website contains a range of online texts which help children to improve their fluency through a guided reading window and comprehension questions across the key strands. Children can access Reading Plus at both school and home and complete weekly reading and vocabulary activities as part of our KS2 Literacy curriculum.

In lower KS2, children requiring extra reading support use Lightning Squad Reading Intervention. This intervention helps children develop strategies for decoding, comprehension and spelling.

Reading Ambassadors 

There are children who are chosen as ‘Reading Ambassadors’. Their role involves talking to their class about books they have read and enjoyed, helping others to pick a good book, keeping class book corners and reading books tidy, writing book reviews to share with others, helping to keep the library tidy and organised. In assemblies, they organise competitions and talk to children about books and whole school reading events such as World Book Day, Scholastic Book Fair.

To read more about our Reading Ambassadors, please view their page here.

Last year, we participated in the Libraries for Primaries initiative through the National Literacy Trust. We have renovated our library and added 500 new books to share with the children. In addition, we received 100 books celebrating Inclusion and Diversity from the IBC (Inclusive Books for Children).

New Library

Writing

Class texts are the main driver for the teaching of writing. Through these children are taught the skills of spelling, handwriting, composition, and vocabulary, grammar and punctuation in line with national end of year expectations. As with all subjects, able children are extended further and those requiring support receive additional teaching and intervention. By the end of Key Stage 2, all children will have worked with an author.

To see the progression of skills in Writing from EYFS to Year 6, please see below:

EYFS Writing Curriculum

Year 1 2 Writing Curriculum

Year 3 4 Writing Curriculum

Year 5 6 Writing Curriculum

Vocabulary

In school, we dedicate a lot of time to improving our vocabulary and exploring new, ambitious word choices through class texts, explicitly teaching the meaning of new vocabulary in lessons.

We introduce new vocabulary each day through 'Word of the Day' flip books, discussing meaning and etymology.

More specifically, in EYFS we use Anchor, Goldilocks, Step-up words which are displayed in class. We also encourage parents to develop speech and vocabulary through 'fridge words' which are taken from tiered vocabulary and sent home via Class Dojo.

Spelling

For spelling, we follow the National Curriculum, teaching the progression of spelling rules across the whole school with support of Spelling Shed, along with Read Write Inc phonics at KS1 level.

Spellings are taught every Monday and revisited across the week. Children will take home up to 10 spellings and are tested on these every Friday.

For the full list of KS1/KS2 spelling objectives, please click here. 

Children are encouraged to practise their spellings at home using Spelling Shed assigned activities.
To access Spelling Shed please visit the website here. 

Pelton Community Primary School