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Reading
Reading at JTR
At John T. Rice Infant School we love to read. We love stories, non-fiction, poems, magazines, e-books and much more!
In each year group we have ten key texts that we revisit throughout the year. This helps us to develop our spoken and written language. It helps us revel in the language patterns, the wonderful illustrations, the predictability of knowing the text so well that we can join in and chorally read it. We love books!
Reading books
Our reading books are matched closely to our phonics scheme. Each child takes home a new book once a week that is matched to the phonics they have learnt the previous week in class. Their reading book allows them to recap and embed the sounds they have learnt in phonics. Each child also keeps a reading book in school and reads that during the week in school with a member of staff. This book is matched to the phonics they are learning that week. They will read this at least once, before the take it home.
Most of our reading books are Big Cat Collins which match to Supersonic Phonics. We also have some Oxford Reading Tree, Oxford Reading Tree Songbirds and Bug Club. All are sorted carefully to match the phonics taught each week.
Developing a love of reading
Each class has a wonderful reading area filled with exciting, vibrant books. The children have access to the reading area throughout each day.
Together with class reading areas, our school library is filled with fiction, non-fiction and poetry books. The children in KS1 have the opportunity once a week to browse the school library books with their parents/ carers and select a book of choice to take home and share. These weekly sessions are called 'open door'. You will see on the class pages what day each class has open door. It runs from 2:50-3:05pm. The children enjoy spending some quality time with parents/ carers in school reading their library book each week.
Children in FS2 have open door every Thursday morning between 8:45am-9:00am in their classroom and choose from the class library books. Parents/ carers are welcome to stay and read their child's new book with them in class.
Children in FS1 start to open door after October half term and this takes place on Wednesday at 11:00am for morning nursery children and 2:50pm for afternoon and 30 hours children.
We recognise not all children's parents/ carers can come to open door so children still change their library book and enjoy reading their new book with either another parent/ carer or a staff member.
The children also take part in a range of reading enrichment activities throughout the year as seen in the timetable below.
Reading Enrichment Timetable
The teaching of reading
We teach reading in everything we do at JTR. It is interwoven into every subject and every part of the children's day. From FS2 - Year 2 the children have daily reading lessons lasting between 20-30 minutes, depending on the year group and time of year.
In these shared reading lessons the children are taught the skills needed in order to be capable readers. These skills include predicting, word reading, understanding vocabulary, comprehension and inference. They benefit from seeing their teacher model what good reading sounds like.
Throughout every reading lesson, phonics plays a huge part. Children are actively encouraged to use phonic skills to decode the texts they read - making learning links with phonics lessons.
Children are provided with a range of high quality texts in reading lessons, which include fiction, non-fiction and poetry. The class work as a whole using talk to share answers and ideas. Year 1 and Year 2 record outcomes in their Shared reading books creating a journey of learning for reading. (Year 1 in the Spring/ Summer term).
Children read in a small group or 1:1 with an adult every week during shared reading time. This provides each child with the chance to read their reading book which is closely matched to the phonics they have been taught and know. It also provides them the chance to have further teaching if they need clarification on any reading skills taught that week in class.
At JTR we know reading is the key to unlocking learning potential and encourage parents to read at home as much as they can. The more children practice their reading and using phonics the better they will get and the more they will love reading!
Reading Progression Document
Reading at home
We recognise at JTR how busy everyone's lives are and how busy families get, but we do encourage parents/ carers to share a book with their child as much as they can. We ask you to aim for around 4 times a week but every day if possible. Developing the love of reading from a young age can dramatically improve the outcomes for young people. Reading really does unlock learning!
Key Tips to reading with your child:
- Reading with your young child helps their development and helps them learn early literacy, aids imagination and helps them to express and understand their emotions
- Bedtime stories are a lovely way of strengthening the bond with your child and encourages them to have a love of reading
- Talking to your child about the characters, the plot, etc. can help them understand the story, create their own plots and endings. This can help them to learn more about real life issues or scenarios.
- Talking to them about unusual words in the book and the meanings of words helps expand their vocabulary
- Reading a favourite book regularly maybe at bedtime offers children comfort and familiarity
- Reading your own book and expressing interest in reading shows children how important reading is and encourages them to sit and read independently