Reading

Whole Class Reading is one part of the reading diet that children who attend Windsor Academy Trust primary schools are exposed to. During Whole Class Reading sessions, every child has a copy of the same text which is read to them by the teacher.

Teachers use this session to model how to:

● think like a reader

● to make predictions and inferences

● work out the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary

● rehearse the use of fluency, expression and prosody (prosody is intonation, tone, stress and rhythm).

These sessions mostly consist of teachers reading and thinking aloud to their class as the children follow along with their own text. There will be opportunities for oral questioning and discussion of the text. The main aim of Whole Class reading is to inspire children through books. By doing so, we promote a love of reading and empower our children to become lifelong readers. Books are a gateway to other worlds and the opening of imaginations which increases our understanding of the world empowered by an expanding vocabulary. Experiencing these high quality and challenging texts mean that all children, regardless of ability, will access these stories and see, hear and feel what it is to be a reader. This will in turn support pupils to use these ideas and vocabulary in their own writing.

Whole Class Reading Approach

WAT Reading Spine

Reading Rewards

In Preschool and Reception children will receive a certificate for every 10 reads they complete. This will need to be recorded in the reading diary by a parent or adult at home. The highest award is the ‘250 read’ award.

In KS1 and KS2 children will receive a certificate for every 25 reads they complete all the way up to 500 reads. This will need to be recorded in the reading diary by a parent or adult at home. This should be recorded in their reading diary, along with the date, book title and a signature from the adult they have read to.

For early readers, this will mean that they will read the same book a number of times in one week. This helps our young readers to practise reading the words in their book over and over again to help build their fluency.

Certificates will be awarded in class assemblies. *A read is every time a child reads for 10 minutes a night.

Supporting the lowest 20% of readers

We are informed of our bottom 20% of readers through regular mock phonic screening and through our professional teaching judgments. These children are supported through 1:1, or small group, daily 'Keep Up' sessions This is an intervention which is specific to each individual child depending upon their reading ability and next steps.

For those children who leave key stage 1 having not achieved the statutory phonics screening daily phonics sessions continue, where appropriate. These children may also be identified by the SENDCO and additional further support is put in place as needed to remove barriers to reading for that child.

In Key Stage 2, children whose reading age is below that of where it should be read daily with an adult in school, providing them with the opportunity to further develop their speed, accuracy, expression and phrasing.

Library

Our library is a peaceful and inviting environment which is designed to inspire our children to read for pleasure.

The children at Tenterfields visit the library once a week with their class and teacher. During the session, they are encouraged to make recommendations to peers and to look for books which peak both their reading and personal interests.

Our library also displays information about a new author every month and copies of texts written by the chosen author.

Our library is also home to our Reading Buddy team. Three times a week, our Year 5 Reading Buddies spend time listening to Year 1 and 2 pupils reading their banded books in the library. The aim of the Reading Buddy programme is to challenge our Year 5 readers to support younger learners and to provide more opportunities for our emerging readers to practise their reading fluency.