Planning: Reading 

Reading at Gurnard Primary School is taught in a range of ways. Some of these are generic across the whole school, whilst others are specific to key stages. These may be implemented by the class teacher, by the Learning Support Assistant or through voluntary support such as from parents and governors. 

• Shared reading including echo and choral reading. 

• Guided reading of the same text, in small groups.

• Comprehension activities linked to the English theme/topic.

• Daily and frequent readers on a one-to-one basis, for those children who need support to ‘catch-up’.

• Regular word level, spellings and phonics work - as a whole class or in small groups for those who need it.

• Reading intervention groups (including Nessy and Rapid Reading).

• Reading of texts linked to work in foundation subjects.

• Reading for pleasure opportunities.

• Storytime in which the class teacher or Learning Support Assistant reads to the class.

• Celebrations such as World Book Day and the Isle of Wight Literary Festival involving local authors, poets, storytellers and a range of book related activities.

• Additional activities to raise the profile of reading.

Children at Gurnard read in almost every lesson. English lessons are driven by high quality texts, alongside discrete reading lessons at least 3 times per week in KS2. Opportunities are also provided for children to practise and extend their reading skills in other subjects.

Once children have learnt to read independently through our systematic synthetic phonics programme, Song of Sounds (see phonics page for more details) our teaching and their learning is directed at developing their fluency and comprehension skills. Work is focused on a series of carefully chosen quality core texts which act as the stimulus to teach higher level comprehension, build knowledge and develop a love of reading and literacy.

Reading is taught across Year 2 to Year 6 using a whole class reading model. 

Our reading model follows three or four teaching stages: 

1. The first session has a focus on the children’s enjoyment of reading where the new text is shared with the class. The priorities for this session are for the children to be engaged with the text, obtain the background knowledge to be able to access the text along with an emphasis on vocabulary- unpicking the challenging new vocabulary that children have been exposed to. There is a real focus on the teacher modelling the reading of the text and the children reading the same text several times through the use of choral, echo or paired reading. 

2. The second session builds on the initial input and uses the same text. Again there is a focus on the children reading the text but this time questions will be asked and  discussed with answers being modelled and explained. Reading skills and strategies are demonstrated and explained. 

3. The third session for the week will again focus on the same text as the previous lessons but is designed to have a more independent application of the learning in which children will apply the skills and strategies that have been learnt in the previous sessions by answering and responding to questions independently. 

4. In some year groups there may be a fourth session which has a comprehension focus where the children are challenged to answer questions about a previously unseen text. This is scaffolded and supported as needed by the class teacher. 

At Gurnard we believe that all children should access the same book and be involved in the same reading journey as their peers. Teachers support or challenge pupils through their questioning and ensure that the cognitive demand of questions is at an appropriate level of challenge for the children. 

Why have we chosen our texts?

We use a wide range of stimuli for our reading journeys including non-fiction, poetry, fiction (including classic and heritage texts), song lyrics, picture books and even media prompts in order to ensure that the children are receiving an engaging, broad and balanced reading diet. We have chosen books to represent our school values of “Respect, Belonging and Success”. 

Books such as ‘Leo and the Octopus”,“ What makes Me a Me?”, “Elmer” and “We’re All Wonders” help to develop the children’s tolerance and understanding of others but also help some of the children, such as those with ASD, to know that there are many more children like them.

Our use of the No Outsiders PSHE resource and the mantra of “No Outsiders – Everyone is welcome in our school. No-one is the same, but everyone is equal.” allows us to educate the children about diversity within our community and address issues such as sexism, ageism, race and different types of families through the use of age-appropriate books. Books such as “Hair, It’s A Family Affair”, “The Great Big Book Of Families”, “All Are Welcome”, “The Truth About Old People”, “Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet”, “Red: A Crayon’s Story”,  “Mixed”, “The Island” and “Introducing Teddy” show how we all belong and should respect each others differences. Please see the full list of texts below. 

As experiencing success is one of our key values, it is essential that we have chosen books that inspire the children and show them what it means to be successful. Texts such as “Tidy”, “The Promise”, “Malala’s Story: The Right to Learn”, and “Nelson Mandela - Long Walk to Freedom” give the children topics to be passionate about and books of inspirational leaders such as Shackleton, Malala and Nelson Mandela show the children what it means to be successful and give examples of people who have gone on to achieve great things. 

Finally, we have chosen a range of texts from classic authors and heritage texts, as well as more recent stars of the literary world.  Authors such as Julia Donaldson, Phillip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo,  J.K Rowling and even Shakespeare are featured as classic authors alongside more recent authors such as Oliver Jeffers, Kieron Larwood and Nicola Davies.