Curriculum & Assessment

Reading

Reading at Stillness

Guided Reading
Guided Reading session are timetabled for each year group in Key Stage 2 (KS2). We use the VIPERS system for the teaching of reading skills.  VIPERS is an acronym for:

V: Vocabulary
I: Infer
P: Predict
E: Explain
R: Retrieve
S: Summarise or Sequence

This is our planning, teaching and learning approach.  Across the week children will take part in a minimum of three 30-minute reading lessons. Each year group studies a selection of high quality texts which are age appropriate.

Each session includes a selection of teaching activities that develop the children’s understanding of reading and answer questions, as our method to explicitly teach each of the VIPERS skills. These whole class reading comprehension sessions are used as a powerful tool to allow all children to make progress in reading and provide regular and supportive opportunities for children to encounter engaging texts that will resonate with their interests and capture their imagination. Carefully graded questions allow children to develop their comprehension skills at an appropriate level. In Lower Key Stage 2, ‘Echo reading’ is a key approach during these sessions as this allows children to practice and develop the prosody of reading.  Children will also be given the opportunity to read individually, take turns in pairs or read aloud to their peers, depending on the session and the year group. Additionally, it is equally as important for them to have a regular chance to listen to the teacher reading. This allows each child to be transported in to the story and immersed into the lives of the characters.

The focus of these sessions is to develop skills to enable children to become complete readers. These skills include decoding, skimming, scanning, comprehension, fluency and prosody. As children move through KS2, they are required to become more analytical as readers. They need to be aware of authorial intent and the implication of historical and cultural context on what they are reading. These difficult skills need to be modelled and taught by the teacher and will aid children in accessing other parts of the curriculum.

Below is a sample of what a week’s set of reading lessons could look like:

reading session examples

The long-term plan has ensured all areas of the National Curriculum are covered throughout KS2 with many opportunities for revision to guarantee they become embedded in the children’s long-term memory.  In addition, all pupils, regardless of background, need or ability, will have made at least good progress from their starting points and will be able to read with accuracy, speed, confidence, fluency and understanding, ready to access the KS3 curriculum and beyond. Pupils will be enthusiastic and motivated readers who are confident and enjoy reading a wide variety of genres and text types. Pupils will be inspired by literature and will read for pleasure, unlocking the many wonders that reading opens up.

As a school we have mapped out learning objectives to ensure that there is a breadth of learning across all year groups.  We have created Knowledge and Skills documents for each year group from Year 3 to Year 6.  See below.

Levelled Readers
When children join us in Year 3 they will undertake a Salford Reading test with a member of our Inclusion Team. The Salford Reading test allows us to analyse a child’s reading fluency, literal understanding, inference and vocabulary. By Year 3, many children will be able to read books written at an age appropriate interest level. They should be able to read them accurately and at a speed that allows then to focus on understanding what they have read, rather than on decoding individual words. To support this expectation, every child in Year 3 is read with at least once per week by our Reading Team. Each child has been given a levelled reader in line with their Salford Reading test outcome and reading is recorded in their personal reading record. This program takes place in our Blue Room: a space that celebrates learning and is resourced with materials that supports their reading journey.

During the year, weekly assessments will be made allowing the children to move to the next reading band, ready for new challenges. It is our aim that by the end of Year 3, they will be able to independently, fluently and enthusiastically read books where their decoding skills are secure and they can confidently discuss the content of the book.

Our Library
At Stillness, we have developed many other opportunities for reading outside of the classroom. We have a bright, welcoming library which contains a wealth of fiction and non-fiction books to extend children’s knowledge, promote research skills and stimulate their imaginations.  It provides a quiet place for children to read and relax and plays a vital role in promoting a love of reading. We recognise the importance of reading for pleasure as it supports all our children to enjoy learning and achieving, feel good about themselves, and become positive members of the community.

Every class has an allocated library slot each week when they can come to the library and choose books that interest them and that extend their reading across the curriculum. In addition, each year group also has a lunchtime slot, run by our parent volunteers and librarians, when they can choose to come and spend a bit more time browsing the bookshelves, reading their library books or flicking through copies of their favourite comic.

Reading at Home

 

Website Recommendations

https://clubs-kids.scholastic.co.uk/authors

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/reading-tips/