Reading Curriculum Intent:

At Corby Primary Academy we intend for all children to read with fluency, ease and confidence by the end of their primary education. It is vitally important that the children have a good understanding of a variety texts and enjoy reading for both pleasure and to gain knowledge and information. By following the National Curriculum, we intend for our children to gain knowledge to support their word reading as well as their comprehension skills. This will be furthered developed and deepened each year throughout their primary education.

We encourage reading to be at the centre of our children's learning as it is an integral part for the children to be able to access other curriculum subjects.

Nurture: Our reading curriculum nurtures our children to be fluent readers by developing key values and giving them the opportunities to acquire knowledge and explore ways to deepen their thinking.

Curiosity: Our reading curriculum develops curiosity by giving the children opportunities to explore a variety of books and authors. We encourage lots of opportunities for reading for pleasure to allow children to have experiences of lots of books and to collaboratively engage with each other.

Diversity: We instil diversity through our reading curriculum by having books where children can see themselves and their own cultures within them. We encourage lots of exploration of texts around different cultures and beliefs, so children feel valued and included.

Ambition: We want our children to access books and reading materials to help widen their knowledge and for our reading curriculum to give our children a rich, meaningful understanding, where they are wanting to continue their thinking further.

Implementation

We value the importance of reading as a skill for life. Children take part in reading activities each day, either through one to one reading with an adult, group reading, guided reading or reading for pleasure. We use a range of books to support children’s reading development; these are a mixture of phonic books aligned with Little Wandle Letters and Sounds, ‘real’ books, banded ‘scheme’ books, amongst others.

Children are encouraged to develop a love for books and reading through being read to and sharing books as well as being heard read. Children take a reading book home each day and are encouraged to read and discuss books at home with their family.

Further information about our academy approach to Reading can be found in our updated below.

Phonics and Spelling

At the Corby Primary Academy we use the revised Letters and Sounds programme from Little Wandle Learning Trust, as our approach to teaching Phonics. Further information can be found in our Phonics and Spelling policy.

Little Wandle Resources for Parents

For more information about how to pronounce the sounds please click here. Notice how the children don’t add an ‘uh’ sound at the end, so they say: ‘t’ not ‘tuh’. Use the downloadable information to help your child remember how to write their letters and say their sounds.

Click here to watch videos and downloads that show parents how we teach your child specific aspects of phonics in class.

Click here to access resources that will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home.

Reading at home

At Corby Primary Academy, we give all children the opportunity to enter the magical world of books as we promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading curriculum. Children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors and to review the books they have read. This enhances a love of literature across a range of genres and styles. This will, in turn, support children to produce written work, in all areas of the curriculum.

We expect our children to read at home at least 4 times a week.  Reading at home is a vital part of education as it builds a wealth of vocabulary as well as supporting retrieval and inference questioning.

Tips to support your children with reading at home:

• Set reading time aside and ensure you have no distractions when reading.
• Ask your child to choose a book as it will support children’s recommendations and the idea of book talk.
• Discuss the illustrations, as this will support inference questioning.
• Encourage your child to talk about the book.
• Make it fun! Read in a funny voice, have a prop or show different actions.

Big Cat Collins Books

Collins Big Cat is a whole-school reading programme that provides complete support for primary reading. Children will become fluent readers through hundreds of high-quality fiction and non-fiction banded books by award-winning authors and illustrators. In-depth teaching resources support you in developing and assessing key reading skills at all stages from early reading through to phonics, to guided, whole-class and independent reading for more confident readers.

Implementation

Staff plan engaging reading lessons following the EYFS, KS1 and KS2 National Curriculum and high quality texts are selected to help form the unit of work.

All children are read to by an adult so that they develop a love for reading. Books are selected by teachers to ensure that there is a link with other areas of the curriculum as this will support the language and vocabulary for the specific topic, as well as allowing the children to access quality texts to support writing genres. 

We have introduced the Big Cat Collins Reading Scheme to support the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised scheme for phonics. Collins Big Cat is a whole-school reading programme that provides complete support for primary reading. Children will become fluent readers through hundreds of high-quality fiction and non-fiction banded books by award-winning authors and illustrators. In-depth teaching resources support staff in developing and assessing key reading skills at all stages from early reading through to phonics, to guided, whole-class and independent reading for more confident readers.                     

All children are expected to read at home at least four times a week and take home reading books.

Guided Reading is taught daily in years 3-6, and they are planned by all teachers to teach a range of skills and techniques which enable children to comprehend the meaning of what they read and develop their understanding of different reading domains.

Around the school, you will find reading areas for the children to access, as well as outside reading areas. Subject specific books will be found in the reading areas to support vocabulary and knowledge based learning. 

A timetable is in place for all classes to visit the school library once a week. Whilst in the library, they are able to read for pleasure, ask and answer questions and listen to an adult read. 

The Academy Reading Ambassadors promote a reading culture throughout the school; they help in the library, choose and sort books, share ideas and share their favourite stories. 

Impact

The impact of the implementation will show children make good progress in Reading, allowing children to access age-related texts and develop their English knowledge and skills in all curriculum areas.

Children will progress, recall learning and develop transferable skills. Attainment in reading is measured using the statutory assessments at the end of EYFS, KS1 and KS2. Termly assessments take place as a way of monitoring children’s progress and development and identifying children who need to be further supported to keep up.