English - Reading
Chris Stephenson-Davis, Amy Turner, Stephanie Lang and Clare Barber
English Subject Leaders
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."
Attributed to Frederick Douglass
Reading is a key way in which children learn about the world around them, enabling them to both acquire knowledge and to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually.
English Programmes of Study (KS1 & KS2)
Vision for Reading
Progression in Knowledge and Skills for Reading at Floreat Montague Park
In Early Years, children listen to a range of stories, developing their understanding of what has been read to them. The children are taught to retell stories and narratives using their own words and will begin to anticipate key events in stories. They are supported to use and understand new vocabulary during discussions about stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems and during role-play. Children progress from noticing sounds in the environment around them to saying a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at digraphs through a systematic phonics programme called Little Wandle Letters & Sounds Revised. They will be taught to blend to read whole words and will read simple sentences aloud.
In Key Stage 1, reading builds on the work from Early Years, making sure that children can sound and blend unfamiliar words quickly and accurately and building towards reading words without overt sounding and blending. Once children are confident with this in Year 2, they move to a whole class reading approach focused on comprehension skills and participating in discussion about fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Children also share a variety of high-quality texts to develop their vocabulary and encourage a love of reading. They become familiar with a range of traditional tales and fairy stories and will join in with predictable phrases, noticing rhyme and discussing the meaning of words which are new to them.
In Lower Key Stage 2, children are supported to read at a speed that is sufficient for them to focus on understanding what they have read, rather than on decoding individual words.Throughout Years 3 and 4 teaching will focus on developing a breadth and depth of reading and vocabulary. This ensures that children develop into enthusiastic, independent readers, who are able to read widely and fluently. Through whole class reading lessons, children become confident in retrieval, summarising, inference and prediction skills. They are able to ask and answer questions about a wide range of texts and make comparisons.
In Upper Key Stage 2, children read regularly for pleasure and to learn new information, both silently and aloud, and are taught to infer the meanings of new words and to ask for help with pronouncing words which are unfamiliar. Vocabulary is key in Upper Key Stage 2; children explore new words to aid their understanding of texts which they read and will learn to evaluate an author’s choice of language, considering the impact on them as the reader. In whole class reading lessons, children make more complex inferences and will be taught to distinguish between facts and opinions. Teachers read to the children every day to model fluent reading and continue to inspire a love of reading for all children.
