Reading

At Whitehall, we aim to teach reading to the highest possible level. We seek to instil a love of reading in all learners and create a culture in which we promote and value the skills of word reading and comprehension. Throughout the school, emphasis is placed on reading for pleasure across a range of text types and genres. We use a whole school approach to the teaching of reading which allows the explicit teaching of reading strategies and comprehension. Class novels, short extracts, poems, picture books and visual texts are used throughout the school. Pupils begin by becoming confident in the skills of prediction, clarification, questioning and summarising.

We endorse the reading of whole books by using set texts for each year group. These texts consist of both fiction and non-fiction books and cover a wide range of genres to ensure that pupils are experiencing high quality texts regularly. These books also form a basis for planning and delivering high quality reading and writing sessions, allowing pupils to study a text in more detail.

Our excellent library promotes reading for enjoyment and pleasure. Pupils are able to select books weekly and take part in lunchtime book clubs run by our librarian. These clubs promote reading for pleasure and allow pupils to share and discuss books informally. In addition, each class has an inviting reading area which has a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, reflecting different genres and styles.

A strong home/school reading partnership is encouraged where parents share books at home with their children, providing valuable help and support. Parents are encouraged to make comments in reading diaries and teachers welcome these views and discuss them with parents and pupils. We also have an on-line reading programme, Bug Club, which pupils can access both at school and at home. This runs alongside our Home/school reading books and is used as an additional resource to encourage reading at home.

It is important that the assessment of reading ensures that all pupils make rapid and sustained progress in all aspects of the reading curriculum. Pupils are assessed regularly in both decoding and comprehension skills; these assessments are used alongside termly reading assessments to track pupils progress and make a judgement as to whether they are working at Age Related Expectations.

We are fully committed to ensuring that all our pupils reach their full potential in reading. Where pupils have made limited progress we provide personalised programmes and support. These arrangements are drawn up by the class teacher in consultation with the Inclusion Manager and aim to close the gap as quickly as possible.