EYFS
Children in Reception participate in daily reading sessions of 30 minutes each. Set up in a carousel style, the children will rotate between 5 different reading activities. One of these sessions will be a Guided Reading Session with the Class Teacher. The other activities will be linked to the Phonics sounds they have been working on or practicing tricky words that they have learnt. It may also include a session about Reading for Pleasure where children will have a chance to read a book from the Classroom Library.
Year 1 and Year 2
Daily Carousel Reading Sessions
Children in Years 1 - 3 participate in daily reading sessions of 30 minutes each. Set up in a carousel style, the children will rotate between 5 different reading activities. One of these sessions will be a Guided Reading Session with the Class Teacher. The other activities will be exploring texts using activities based on the reading domains (Retrieval, Predicting, Understanding Words, Sequencing/Summarising and Inference) or will be linked to the Phonics sounds they learnt that day. It may also include a session about Reading for Pleasure where children will have a chance to read a book from the Classroom Library or from a box of books linked to the topic provided by Barnet Library Service.
Year 3 and Year 4
Daily Reading Sessions
Children in Years 3 and 4 participate in reading sessions everyday. The first day of the week the children are introduced to a new challenging text where they read it together as a class and unpick any challenging vocabulary. The days following will be exploring the text using activities based on the reading domains (Retrieval, Predicting, Understanding Words, Summarising, Inference, Linking to other texts and Understanding the authors purpose). They will complete these tasks in small groups, discussing the questions and comparing answers within the group.
Year 5 and Year 6
Whole Class Reading Sessions
Years 5 and 6 complete reading sessions daily, as a whole class. Based off a high-quality and challenging text, the students will do a range of reading including independent reading, listening to reading modelled, paired reading and choral reading. All of the students will have access to the same activities and levels of questioning and will be led in a discussion to help pupils get to grips with new vocabulary and develop their understanding of the text. Depending on the activity, pupils may work in mixed-ability groups, pairs or by themselves. The questions included in the lesson are based on the reading domains (Retrieval, Predicting, Understanding Words, Summarising, Inference, Linking to other texts and Understand the authors purpose).
Accelerated Reader
Accelerated Reader is a computer program that will help to develop children’s independent reading. It works in quite a simple way; the child will pick a book at their own level, and when finished will take a short quiz on the computer. The quiz is a key feature of how we change home reading books at school for Years 2-6, but is a really important step because if they can pass a quiz about what they have read then this tells us that they have fully understood the content of their book.
All children have undertaken a short reading test that has assigned them a reading band (or Z.P.D.). They are then able to select a book from our library that falls within their Z.P.D. This reading band guides children towards choosing books at an appropriate reading level that are challenging without being frustrating. The aim is for them to pass the quiz and be successful.
All of our home reading books in school have been labelled and put into colour bands that will help with choosing appropriate books. One of the best parts about using Accelerated Reader is that the children can choose their own books to read, rather than having one assigned to them. This in turn, makes reading a much more enjoyable experience as they can choose books that are interesting to them.
Parkfield's famous Library
As part our venture to ensure all children find enjoyment in reading, we have an amazing library in our school. Run by our fabulous librarian, Mrs Dennehy, the children love going to the library weekly to choose a book for home. And with over 1,000 books to choose from, this is not always an easy task!
