Our Reading Curriculum

At Grasslot Infant 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.

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 encourage good home/school partnerships.

• To monitor each child’s progress through the use of a range of assessment strategies e.g.  on-going reading observations, half-termly Read, Write, Inc assessments. 

• To support those children who require additional support with their reading through e.g Fast Track Tutoring. 

Many activities take place which promote pre-reading skills. Children become aware of print in their environment and match pictures and words.

Language comprehension is developed by talking and reading to the children with carefully selected books from our reading spine or talk through stories sessions. 

Children are introduced to story sacks and rhymes, allowing them to interact with the text in a variety of ways including orally composing a story, using puppets to re-tell, playing games and generally developing a love of stories and rhymes. 

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 reading scheme until they reach the required standard to become a free-reader, choosing a book to read from our well-stocked school or class libraries. In addition to a personalised reading book, children are able to take a book home from the school library. For more information on phonics please see Phonics and Early Reading section on the website. 

Children in EYFS and KS1 have daily guided reading sessions in small groups through the Read, Write, Inc programme. This also means that their reading teacher is able to hear them individually. Children identified as needing extra support by the Reading Leader, are heard to read on a one to one basis more frequently.  Where children have been identified as not making expected progress, they will take part in the RWI Fast Track programme with trained staff.  

We use Read, Write inc. recommended stories in school and the children take part in a daily         'Talk Through Stories' session. During the two week planned sessions:

•   In Story week, we get to know the story really well: the plot, the characters, and their actions and motives.
• In Vocabulary week, we explore eight words from the story, specifically selected to develop children’s understanding of each word in the context of their everyday lives.

Our children in Key Stage One take part in the ‘Chapter One’ programme. Some children are chosen to do one to one reading with a reading volunteer online. 
Our children have enjoyed this and it has given them an additional reading session a week.