“The world belongs to those who read.” 

~ Rick Holland ~ 

Intent

At Northfield St Nicholas, reading is intertwined throughout our whole curriculum as it is the key to unlocking learning.

Phonics

In nursery, children begin their phonics journey by practising their speaking and listening skills. They take part in a range of activities that include listening and identifying sounds, making voice sounds and listening for rhythm and rhymes.

Our chosen phonics scheme at NSN is Read, Write Inc. Read, Write Inc follows a systematic approach to teaching phonics and allows children to build on their phonological knowledge. Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 engage in daily phonics sessions, where they are taught new sounds in line with their current reading ability. Children will also be introduced to new books, that are appropriate to their developing phonics knowledge, which they will read several times over a week to develop their fluency.

Reading Curriculum

At NSN, we follow the CUSP curriculum for reading and, from Year 1, the children begin their journey through the CUSP Literature Spine. The texts chosen throughout this reading spine are designed to offer a range of experiences, authors, perspectives and themes.

In Key Stage One, children will engage in five reading lessons over a two-week period and in Key Stage Two, children will engage in reading lessons daily.

The structure of a typical reading lesson is as follows:

·       Introducing new vocabulary and discuss meanings and relevant connections.
·       Read a text or extract using a range of reading strategies, such as echo reading, paired reading or timed reading.
·       Teachers explain the reading strategy focus and model how to answer a specific question.
·       Teachers and children work together to answer a reading question.
·       Children work independently to apply their knowledge to answer reading questions of the same type.

Please see below  our literature spines for each year group:

Reading at Home

Children will bring home reading books from school to practise reading with you at home. These may be Read Write Inc Book Bag Books, or books from our reading scheme in relation to your child’s current reading fluency level. They may also bring home a reading for pleasure book, which they have chosen themselves from our ‘Lost Library’. We ask that all children read at least three times a week at home, to develop their fluency and confidence in reading, and record this on Boom Reader.

Cross-Curricular Links

Reading is intwined throughout our curriculum, as to become a successful learning you need to be a fluent reader. Opportunities to develop children’s reading fluency are promoted throughout the day, including, but not limited to, within maths, history, geography and science learning.