Reading

Reading

Reading is a key priority at Maldon Primary School, with an expectation that children will read daily in school and regularly at home most evenings for practise and pleasure.

Early Reading

Our younger readers follow the “Read Write Inc” (RWI) scheme when learning to read. This scheme places an emphasis on developing a strong understanding of synthetic phonics as well as reading for meaning, so children quickly develop understanding of texts alongside their ability to decode words. Once children have progressed beyond the RWI scheme, daily reading continues in school through focused reading opportunities.

Accelerated Reader

The Accelerated Reader programme is used from Year 2 onwards to encourage children with reading at home and support them to further develop their comprehension skills. Children take home a level appropriate book to read to themselves or with an adult. When they are ready, children take an online quiz at school about the book they have read.

Teaching reading

We run daily whole class structured reading sessions. We focus on not only the comprehension skills needed to read and understand the book, but also the wider setting, historical and cultural context of a book. This allows children to develop a deeper understanding of the text they are reading and make links to other they may have read. We promote the love of reading and use a range of strategies when reading the book as a class.

Class books

Teachers read class books to the children. We have designed our progression in books thinking about female, male authors, those from other cultures and given a mix of classic, older and newer authors.

Books home

Our younger children take home a book where they know the sounds of the letters; a book they have practised in class and one for them to share with an adult at home. our older children take home books in their reading zone.

Encouraging reading

We have a fantastic library that children love and use on a frequent basis. We make sure we never run out for books that children can and want to read. All children will read during the school day and be read to.

Parents’ engagement

Our first Parents’ Evening concentrates on reading. We explain and encourage our approach and your own child’s reading age. We will take you through the data we collect on reading. This is their key to future educational success.

Vocabulary

A note about expanding vocabulary. We use key words in all our curriculum and have developed our own child friendly definitions which we test the children on. This, in itself, will not expand vocabulary to the depth we would like but we feel it is an important first step and models the love and use of language that we want your children to develop.