
English
Reading
At Annesley, we believe that the teaching of reading is integral to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves. Our reading curriculum strives to foster a lifelong love of reading. We cultivate the behaviours that they will need to be discerning readers as they read frequently and widely using self-regulation strategies and discuss what they read. This curriculum is delivered through synthetic phonics, a linked approach to shared and guided reading, home reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent reading and hearing quality texts read aloud every day. All of these are essential components as they offer the range of opportunities needed to develop fluent, enthusiastic and critical readers.
It is important that children are motivated to read at home regularly; when their reading opportunities increase, so does their fluency and stamina which in turn increases their enjoyment of reading. Therefore, the link between children’s motivation to read and reading for pleasure is reciprocal. Furthermore, we know that reading pleasure is beneficial not only for not only reading outcomes, but for wider learning enjoyment and mental wellbeing. Thus, we work hard to foster a love of independent reading and build communities of engaged readers. We understand the significance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills so we endeavour to build a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to have the confidence to support their children with reading at home.
Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum. We are committed to promoting a love for reading.
Writing is also a vital part of our curriculum. Writing, given the right environment and stimulus, is an aspect of literacy that can give enormous pleasure. We aim to enable our pupils to consider themselves as ‘writers’, to encourage confidence and the motivation to want to write and to have sufficient control over the mechanics of writing to allow for skilful development of the writing process. We aim to ensure a balanced mix of approaches to writing so that our pupils achieve the skills required, a positive attitude, confidence as well as creativity and a love of writing. We aim to set high expectations of pupils and to give writing a high profile in all its forms.
Reading is the gateway skill to academic success!
We use Rocket Phonics to support the teaching of reading in school. Teachers have all been trained to implement this systematic, synthetic phonics programme (SSP) and it also supports children further up school when required. Rocket Phonics is part of Rising Stars, which is the reading Scheme we use throughout school.
Reading Squads have been developed to support our new approach to reading, with an emphasis on “keep up not catch up”. The Reading squads are comprised of 3 additional, trained staff who will work in both Foundation 2 and Year 1 alongside existing staff on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays to offer intense, directed reading support to all groups within each class simultaneously. Phonics will then be led by the teacher in each year group in addition to this reading support.
In the second half of these 3 afternoons, the Reading Squads will support individuals or groups of children chosen by their teachers, who would benefit from extra reading support, that is targeted specifically to match their needs in reading. Class teachers have liaised with the Reading Squad staff members on the needs of the selected children. This additional support is for individuals and groups of children from Foundation to Year 6.
We see reading success as vital to later academic success. We endeavour to offer high quality provision that starts early and continues to meet the needs of all children as they travel though school. Rigorous assessment, combined with targeted provision offered in a comprehensive approach, reflects our belief that being able to read and enjoy reading is our greatest gift to the children at this school.
Here are some useful links to reading: