Reading at Wold Newton Foundation School
At Wold Newton we aim to create life long readers who use their love of reading to escape to new worlds through fiction and non fiction texts. We teach reading through a variety of strategies, using visual prompts to remind pupils to utilise these strategies while reading.
We encourage pupils by using high quality texts and sharing our reading recommendations together, constantly updating our class and school library with texts recommended by pupils, staff, and the wider community.
Guided Reading is taught throughout the school from EYFS to Year 6. These structured session are linked to a class or group reader. Pupils are taught the skills of;
Predicting, retrieval, purpose, vocabulary, inference, sequencing, skimming, scanning, identifying fact and opinion, cause and effect, summarising the main idea and comparing and contrasting.
When reading pupils are also taught to use a variety of tools; Predict/ question the information; Link to other experiences and previous reading; Repair words/ phrases that don’t make sense; Look closely at the words and sentence punctuation; Piece the information together until you have the full picture; Visualise what is happening in the text.
Guided Reading sessions are also linked to the writing genres we focus on within each half term. For additional information please see the writing section under English.
We recently refurbished our library area to transform this into an inviting space for pupils. We have a TA dedicated to monitoring the library ensuring texts are regularly updated and also leading reading sessions/ developing library skills throughout the school on a rotational basis.
Inventor and writer Lin Yutang on the magic of reading:
"Compare the difference between the life of a man who does no reading and that of a man who does. The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighbourhood. From this prison there is no escape.
But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world, and if it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch with one of the best talkers of the world. This talker leads him on and carries him into a different country or a different age, or unburdens to him some of his personal regrets, or discusses with him some special line or aspect of life that the reader knows nothing about. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of long ago, and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what that ancient author looked like and what type of person he was...
Now to be able to live two hours out of twelve in a different world and take one's thoughts off the claims of the immediate present is, of course, a privilege to be envied by people shut up in their bodily prison."
Our reading policy encourages pupils to read to an adult at home three times each week. This can be shared reading, fiction, non fiction, stories, rhymes, magazines or newspapers. We encourage our pupils to read a rich and diverse range of texts, with parents sharing the reading journey, reading to their children, alongside or sharing book recommendations.
We use Jolly Phonics from the EYFS onwards with pupils receiving a reading book in line with their phonics progression. As pupils move through school and become free readers they have access to a wide range of texts within their classroom.
KS2 have a number of high interest lower reading books for pupils who may need additional support in this area. We also use Storyworlds as an intervention programme. Class teachers work closely with the SENCo to develop programmes for any pupils who may need additional support.
We also run reading challenges throughout the year which encourage pupils to read books across all the different genres.
By clicking the links below you will find suggested reading material for each class.
We are constantly trying to develop pupils vocabulary and encourage children to ask about words they do not understand. We use visuals and synonyms to help explain these and add to their language development.
