Reading

Reading at Cavendish

Intent

Cavendish Primary School believe that Reading is essential across the curriculum and is important in all areas for learning.  Reading is a vital skill for life both inside and out of education and that is why it features across all the subjects taught across our school.

We aim to develop a love of reading for all children as this is the key to success!

Teaching children to read confidently for information and pleasure is one of the most important things we do at Cavendish.

Our reading curriculum aims to give all children the knowledge they need to succeed and that all children will leave our school ready for their next stage in learning and be able to read confidently at an age appropriate level.

Our goal is for our pupils to be readers for life and we have developed a curriculum and a reading spine which strives to reflect this. 

Implementation – how we teach Reading at Cavendish

At Cavendish, we feel that age appropriate, challenging and engaging learning is vital.

Good early reading provision is key. Children need to be given the building blocks to become competent readers and this must be embedded early; good quality phonics teaching is an important part of this. 

EYFS and Year 1 follow a validated systematic synthetic phonics programme: Success for All (https://fft.org.uk/phonics/). The SFA reading scheme is fully decodable.

Year 2 and Key Stage 2 follow the Reading Gems (One Education) approach.

Reading Gems is a reading strategy that aims to teach children to take pleasure in reading by themselves, listening to someone else read, and sharing texts with adults and other children. Different and specific key skills are taught explicitly to the children through discussions about texts, teacher modelling and opportunities to answer questions independently or with support where needed. Each new reading skill is allocated a colour-coded ‘gem’. Every week, children focus on a certain reading gem and learn strategies to help them develop that particular skill.

Reading Spine

At Cavendish Primary School, we have a reading spine which incorporates a variety of text styles, plot structures and is diverse.  The complexity of texts builds up over the years and children/teachers are encouraged to choose a book from the spine each half term.

What can you do to support your child with reading?

We recognise and understand the importance of reading as a life skill. As adults, we rely on our ability to read for both work and for leisure. Reading underpins and supports everything that children do at both primary and secondary school, and in their future lives. In fact, reading is without doubt one of the most important skills they will learn in school. In light of this, any support you can give your child with reading at home is extremely valuable.

In order to help your child here are some things you could do at home:

• Listen to your child read their school reading book at home as often as possible. Discuss these books together.
• Let them see you read different types of texts so that they recognise the importance of reading
• Read to them at bedtime – there’s no better end to the day!
• Discuss words that they come across and what they mean, whether they are in books or when you are out and about
• Share books together – take turns reading to encourage them
• Encourage older siblings to read with their younger siblings
• Sing nursery rhymes to develop speech and language
• Go to the town library and choose a book
• Talk about Reading Gems and discuss which skill they have learned this week.