Reading

Guided Reading

Our guided reading approach is informed by extensive research into comprehension strategy instruction, as recommended by the EEF. The aims of the sessions are to engage with texts, respond to them, talk about them and develop a deeper understanding (comprehension).

Once children have completed RWI Phonics, they take part in daily guided reading sessions. During the sessions, we focus on developing the key comprehension strategies through careful modelling and supported practice.

The sessions utilise a wide variety of texts and seek to:

• Encourage critical and evaluative thinking through use of open prompts, questions and invitations

• Encourage reference to the text to support their thinking

• Build towards group dialogue

• Encourage personal responses from the children

• Enable children to support their opinions with evidence from the text and to change and adapt their ideas in response to others

Home Reading

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” ― Emilie Buchwald

Evidence strongly suggests that parents and the home environment are essential to the early teaching of reading and fostering a love of reading.

Key findings from the evidence include:

• Parental involvement in a child’s literacy has been reported as a more powerful force than other family background variables, such as social class, family size and level of parental education (Flouri and Buchanan, 2004 – cited in Clark and Rumbold, 2006);

• Children whose home experiences promote the view that reading is a source of entertainment are likely to become intrinsically motivated to read (Baker, Serpell and Sonnenschein, 1995 – cited in Clark and Rumbold, 2006);

• Children are more likely to continue to be readers in homes where books and reading are valued (Baker and Scher, 2002 – cited in Clark and Rumbold, 2006).

Reading Books Coming Home

Access to reading materials at the correct level is vital in setting children up to succeed in reading. Carefully matched reading books will be sent home for your children to read independently or read to you. They will know all of the sounds used in the text because they match the sounds in the books they are being taught in class. This means they will be able to read the text with fluency and confidence – like a storyteller. They will enjoy reading to someone else or to themselves.

This does not mean the text is too easy for them – it means they are reading at the correct level. We do not send texts home the children cannot read because we always want them to be set up to succeed in their reading.