Reading

Reading at Wybers Wood Academy

At Wybers Wood Academy, we promote a positive reading culture through all areas of the curriculum from the very first day of school. Fiction, poetry and non-fiction books are available for every child to read and enjoy both in school and to read at home. We are determined to support our children in being the very best readers that they can be. It is important to us, that children at Wybers Wood Academy develop a lifelong love for reading, so throughout the year, reading events and opportunities are planned for, to elevate the standing of reading. These events include whole school reading days, author / illustrator visits, book giveaways and charity days such as World Book Day. Our Reading Enhanced Curriculum also has reading for purpose at its very core. All classrooms have reading areas stocked with a range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Books are also displayed around classrooms to support topics and in small world and role play areas. Children have access to the school libraries where there are a range of books including British values and PSHCE themed texts. We believe that every pupil has the ability to learn to read and that they have a fundamental right to access high quality literature from their very first day of school. In order to achieve this, we teach, develop and promote reading across the academy in a number of different ways: Reading for Practice, Reading for Purpose and Reading for Pleasure.

Our Aims

Our aims in the teaching of reading for 2023 – 2024 are:

To embed the use of Accelerated Reader in KS2
To develop ways of further promoting Reading for Pleasure across the academy
To hold termly parent/carer drop in sessions to share books with their children
To establish a termly buddy reading session across the academy
To continue to expose our children to a vocabulary rich diet of reading
To continue to provide a consistent and progressive approach to teaching reading through challenging, high quality and age-appropriate texts
To continue to implement effective comprehension strategies so that pupils’ ability to read for meaning improves and challenges the most able
To continue to ensure all children improve their fluency, and thus support at least good progress in reading for every child
To continue to develop a love for reading by providing real books that foster an interest in a variety of texts and genres, both fiction and non-fiction.
To equip all pupils with the necessary phonic knowledge and skills to allow them to access texts, at an age-appropriate level.
To develop fluency at all stages so that our pupils learn to read text with proficient accuracy, automaticity and prosody.
To foster a love and appreciation of books across the school and beyond.
To ensure that ALL children across the academy have access to challenging, quality, age-appropriate texts.
To ensure that reading is given sufficient curriculum time across the academy

Our Approach

Phonics and early reading is taught with fidelity using a bespoke phonics programme called Read Write Inc (RWI) across the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One. Through this programme, we develop the children’s phonological awareness, ability to segment and blend words and read tricky words by sight – in order to become fluent readers.
Early reading – teachers only use books that are fully decodable at the pupils’ level allowing them to apply their current phonics knowledge. Reading books are carefully matched to the phonics phase that pupils are working in and children are able to talk about their favourite books.
The Wybers Wood Reading Strategy is designed to develop vocabulary, a wider knowledge and reading comprehension skills. It takes place EVERY day from Y1-Y6. We also promote the Top 30 Reads (fiction and non-fiction) to each year group and encourage all of our pupils to read as many of these titles throughout the year as possible.
Fluency is addressed at every opportunity. One of the most visible features of fluent readers is their ability to read orally with appropriate expression or prosody.
Independent reading – children in Key Stage 2 are given the opportunity to read independently every day.
Interventions – interventions are delivered daily to any child who is not making the expected progress by experienced teachers and TAs. We aim to keep up not catch up.
Assessment takes various forms of both formative and summative at all stages of the child’s learning, and progress is tracked rigorously in weekly RAG meetings with Key Stage leaders and the Head of Academy
Love of reading is defined by the ongoing initiatives throughout school. Children are also encouraged to always have a book for pleasure in their book bag that can either be shared with an adult at home or read independently. Book corners around the school encourage children to read and entice them to look at the books linked to the topic in that particular book nook. By surrounding children with books, we create a culture of reading for pleasure early on.
Home reading – all children take home books every day to read. Children following the phonics scheme take books that are phonically decodable and match their current learning alongside a book that can be shared at home with an adult. Once children are reading more fluently, they choose books to go home that are appropriate for their age and stage of reading development. KS2 pupils complete online reading through Reading Plus.
We use praise and rewards to encourage reading such as certificates and badges.
All pupils are given a book bag and series of traditional tales when they join our Early Years provision. Parents are also invited to attend ‘Stay and Play’ sessions where they can read with their children.