English Reading
At Upton, reading is at the very heart of our curriculum. 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 and acquire knowledge 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; building communities of independent, engaged readers. We cultivate the behaviours that they will need to be discerning readers as they read frequently and widely, across the curriculum, using self-regulation strategies and a growing ability to discuss what they read.
We endeavor to build a home-school partnership that enables parents and carers to have the confidence to support their children with reading at home; when their reading opportunities increase, so does their fluency and stamina which in turn increases their enjoyment of reading.
What do we teach?
Reading is the gateway to pupils' learning. To ensure all our pupils are able to access the full curriculum, we, therefore, place a strong focus on oracy, early reading, and vocabulary development right from the start.
Teachers regularly read with the children so the children get to know and love a range of genres, poetry, and information books. This is in addition to the books that they bring home. This helps to extend children’s vocabulary and comprehension, as well as support their writing. We provide a text-rich environment, in order to encourage a positive culture of reading throughout all classes and promote reading for pleasure.
Through the delivery of our reading curriculum, we ensure consistent and robust teaching and learning of early reading and phonics, through the Little Wandle Scheme, in EYFS and KS1. Children are provided with books that match and support their phonics development and ability so that pupils are able to read with increased speed and fluency and access the wider curriculum. All pupils have opportunities to develop their reading skills daily and are encouraged to read at home with an adult. Through targeted teaching and learning experiences, we develop children’s skills and competence so that they are fluent readers who can read to learn.
Whole class guided reading is used throughout KS2 to enable all children to share high-quality texts and develop skills in reading comprehension and fluency whilst reading skills are continually developed through the wider curriculum.
Links to Global Learning
Our carefully selected texts provide opportunities for the further exploration of global issues whilst building on children’s cultural capital and offering them the chance to think like global citizens. Through exploring the values, beliefs, and experiences of different groups of people, different characters, and different historical points, children draw on these texts to understand other ways of seeing, knowing, and thinking from a range of cultures, traditions, and historical events.
For more information regarding our English Reading curriculum, please contact the school office via the contact us tab on the school website.
