At Parkway Primary School children will learn to read with confidence, fluency and understanding, providing them with the skills required to achieve a lifetime of enjoyment through reading. Children read in school independently, in guided groups and as a shared class session. They listen to adults and other children read, taking part in paired reading.

Our Reading aims are:

• To promote reading for pleasure.
• To promote confidence and positive attitudes to reading through access to a wide range of literature.
• To develop phonetic skills which lead to blending and reading accurately and fluently.
• To broaden their vocabulary.
• To develop comprehension skills and enable children to analyse what they read and to participate in discussion and debate about texts.
• To support those children who require additional support with their reading.

Reading in School

Many activities take place which promote pre-reading skills. In the EYFS, children first become aware of print in their environment and match pictures and words. Language comprehension is developed by talking and reading to the children. Children are introduced to stories allowing them to orally compose a story which is acted out by themselves and their peers. 

Initially, as children learn to read, they are given no word picture books with the intention that they will share the book and take part in a conversation generated by the pictures. Gradually, as the children's knowledge of letters and sounds develop, children begin to phonetically decode words.  

The first books given are Songbirds, which are fully phonetically decodable. Our reading books are organised into coloured Book Bands. Children are assessed regularly and move onto the next Book Band when their fluency and understanding show that they are ready. Children move through the Book Bands until they reach the required standard to become a Free-Reader, choosing a book to read from our well-stocked school or class book areas. In addition to a personalised reading book, children can take a book home from the school library. In KS2 there is a greater emphasis on comprehension with most children decoding easily.

Early reading is very important and is a huge focus at Parkway. ISAs and LSAs will be supporting the progression of reading by working with targeted groups to develop early reading skills.  

We monitor each child’s progress using a range of assessment strategies e.g. Reading Age tests, on-going 1 to 1 reading observations with a class adult and monitoring of home reading records. In addition, children in Year 1 are tested through phonics screening tests and in KS1 and KS2 year groups, reading comprehension tests are carried out termly. 

For guided reading sessions in the mainstream, we use a reciprocal reading approach to develop children’s knowledge of each different reading skill. Reciprocal reading involves children having ‘roles’ and, as a group, discuss each role in detail. These roles will include summarisers, predictor, clarifiers and questioners, thus developing different types of reading skills in each guided reading session. This approach begins in the Summer 2 term of Reception and carries through to the end of Year 6 with the beginning of the EYFS focusing on whole class comprehension. 

In our provision, children access reading through reading eggs which is an online learning tool with games and activities, mainly based on phase 1 and 2 phonics. As children move through the scheme they develop core reading skills supported by guided reading activities e.g. games and comprehension. As some children become confident readers they move onto the mainstream texts. Weekly books are sent home, and each child has an individual log in that can be used at home and tracks progress. Children are encouraged to take home a topic book home once a term and these are also explored in class. 

At Parkway we are proud of the progress and achievement made by our children. Standards of reading are continuously improving and most children are meeting or exceeding expected standards. Children are enthusiastic about their reading and approach reading tasks with confidence. 

Developing Reading for Pleasure

We aim to encourage a love of reading by holding book themed days and events both as individual classes and across the whole school e.g. World Book Day. Book Fairs are held to allow all children the chance to look at new books of all genres and hopefully purchase a new book of their own to take home! Our well-stocked book corners promote authors and a range of reading material to appeal to all pupils. Children's suggestions for new books are encouraged and purchased. Children have access to a school library during lunchtimes, allocated lesson times and sessions are also run where parents can share a book with their child. 

Please click to the link below to see how our Reading teaching progresses throughout each year group.