Reading

 

Our teaching of English includes phonics, reading, writing, handwriting and EGPS (English, punctuation, grammar and spelling). Please find here the primary national curriculum for English: 

Link to English NC 

Intent: The Master Key to Learning At Kirkstall Valley, we believe that reading is the master key that unlocks the door to lifelong learning. Success in reading underpins success in all subjects; therefore, our curriculum is designed to ensure every child becomes a fluent, confident reader who reads for both meaning and pleasure.

We are committed to the view that reading is a civil right. Our intent is three-fold:

  1. Phonemic Awareness: To ensure every child masters the mechanical skill of decoding as quickly as possible.

  2. Fluency & Comprehension: To move children from "learning to read" to "reading to learn," allowing them to access the riches of the full curriculum.

  3. Love of Reading: To foster a culture where children experience the joy of powerful texts, building their cultural capital and empathy through our carefully curated Reading Spine.

Implementation: How We Teach Reading

1. Early Reading & Phonics (The Foundation) We prioritise the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics. From the very start of Early Years, children follow a rigorous sequence of learning that allows them to decode words accurately. We ensure that reading books are closely matched to the sounds children know, ensuring they feel the courage and confidence that comes with success.

2. Developing Fluency (Whole Class Teaching) Once phonics is secure (typically from Year 2 onwards), we transition to whole-class reading lessons. These take place daily for 30 minutes. We deliberately choose texts from our Reading Spine that are pitched slightly above the children’s independent reading level to provide appropriate challenge.

Our pedagogical approach focuses heavily on Fluency, ensuring children can read with automaticity and prosody (expression). We use evidence-based "collective reading" strategies to support this:

  • Choral Reading: Pupils and staff read a passage aloud together to build rhythm and confidence.

  • Echo Reading: The teacher models the intonation of a tricky sentence, and children repeat it back.

  • Cloze Reading: Pupils follow the text while the teacher reads, filling in the 'gaps' of specific high-value words.

3. Vocabulary & Comprehension To ensure children can access these challenging texts, we use schema activation—creating links between what the child already knows and the new text. We explicitly pre-teach the vocabulary and background knowledge required to understand the book. Comprehension skills (retrieval, inference, prediction) are then taught explicitly through a blend of oral discussion and written tasks.

Long Term Plan

Impact: Assessment and Support

We are ambitious for all our readers. We use diagnostic assessment at the start of each term to measure fluency, word reading, and comprehension.

  • Keep-Up, Not Catch-Up: In line with best practice, we prioritise "keeping up" strategies. If a child falls behind, we identify the specific gap (e.g., a missing phonic sound or lack of fluency) and provide immediate, targeted practice to close that gap quickly.

  • Summative Assessment: We track progress termly to inform our first-wave teaching and ensure our curriculum remains responsive to the needs of our cohorts.

  • Get in Touch

    • Subject Leader: Mrs Bridges and Mr Lund

    • Link Governor: Cath Scanlon

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