George Eliot Primary School

Policy for Teaching and

Tracking of Reading in

KS1 and KS2

Date Published: November 2015

Review Date: November 2015

Signature: G Thomas

Frequency of Review: 2 Years

Next Review Due: November 2017

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Policy Statements – Our Aims for the Teaching and Learning of Reading

For Teachers:

To develop children’s reading strategies in order to produce a self-extending system

To foster an enthusiasm for reading as a source of enjoyment, information and commu-nication

To match children with books

To provide a language rich environment with a wide range of reading material

To enhance children’s motivation and involvement in reading modelling

To ensure literacy opportunities underpin all the curriculum

For children:

To become independent readers who orchestrate a full range of reading clues (phonic, syntactic, graphic, and contextual) monitoring and self-correcting their reading

To access all areas of the curriculum including ICT

To begin to develop lifelong interest and pleasure in reading

To value and thus care for books

To develop their powers of imagination, creativity and critical awareness

To gain an understanding of their own and other’s worlds in the past, the present and the future

Objectives

The National Curriculum programmes of study for reading at Key Stages 1 and 2 consist of two dimensions:

Word reading

Comprehension (both listening and reading).

It is essential that our teaching focuses on developing pupils’ competence in both dimensions.

Our approach to the teaching of reading

We agree that reading must be rigorously and regularly taught, it is not picked up by a process of osmosis. We believe the most effective learning is achieved by providing a balanced literacy programme using a variety of approaches. We are committed to introducing skills and strategies within a meaningful context. We create activities to reinforce a skill, but always return it to context, to the whole reading picture.

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To be independent readers, our children need to use a range of reading cues:

Semantic cues, from meaning; “Does it make sense?”

Syntactic cues, based on familiarity with the structure of language; “Does it sound right?”

Visual or grapho-phonic cues, which enable the child to identify individual letters, or pat-terns of letters, in clusters, affixes, roots and whole words, either instantly on sight or from their associated sounds; “Does it look right?”

Concepts of print:

Directional movement

One-to- one matching

Punctuation

Capital and lower case letters

Cover and illustrations Strategies:

Self-monitoring

Predicting

Confirming Approaches to teaching and learning

Phonics At George Eliot we are committed to teaching a literacy curriculum which is a whole language experience, where phonics plays a vital but not exclusive part of reading. Phonics teaching is an essential, daily component of our teaching of word Reading. We use the Ruth Miskin Read, Write Inc. Programme in Year 1 and Letters and Sounds in Year 2 and for those who need extra support Year 3to promote a strong and systematic emphasis on the teaching of synthetic phonics. As part of this scheme the children are taught to:

• discriminate between the separate sounds in words;

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• learn the letters and letter combinations most commonly used to spell sounds;

• read words by sounding out and blending their separate parts;

• study written representations of a sound and how it looks;

• Recognise on sight vocabulary identified as ‘tricky words’.

The Year 1 children and those of Year 2 who did not reach the required standard in Year 1 take part in the National Phonics screening checks in the summer term. The test involves reading 40 real and invented words (we are calling these imaginary creatures) out of context. We value the results in order to monitor progress and fine tune our teaching accordingly.

Year 1 Spellings are linked to the National Curriculum spelling requirements (English Appendix

1). Years 2-6 follow “No Nonsense Spelling”.

Word recognition We are committed to building our children’s sight vocabulary as soon as possible. Known words form an anchor point around which learners can begin to organize the complexity of print in-formation on a page and they can start to monitor their own reading. They can begin to find re-lationships between the familiar and the new and gain pleasure from the pattern of words, word families etc. High frequency words will be singled out for attention e.g. spelling tests, but always returned to a meaningful context. Word lists are only sent home for reinforcement, never unseen and in isolation. Reading to children We agree that this should have a prominent place in the daily classroom programme at all lev-els.

It fosters a love and enthusiasm for reading

It demonstrates, in the most direct way possible, a teacher’s belief that reading is impor-tant

It provides opportunities for children to hear stories that may be beyond their present reading capabilities

It introduces them to a variety of story structures, genres, characters, authors and illus-tration styles

It provides a good model of oral reading and brings life to the printed word

It stimulates the imagination and takes the reader beyond their experience

Generates new ideas

It helps children encounter danger in a safe environment

It helps children come to terms with their emotions in a non-threatening way

It provides models for writing and the opportunity to learn about the writer’s craft and how stories are structured

Few children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word. Someone has to show them the way

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Reading with children Shared Reading

What is it?

This is a cooperative reading activity based on the enjoyable experience of the bedtime story. Shared reading typically involves a teacher and a large group of children sitting closely together to read and reread carefully selected enlarged texts. Shared reading can also be done effectively with smaller groups.

Why do we do it?

It is an instructional approach in which the teacher explicitly models the reading strate-gies, skills and behaviors of the proficient reader.

It allows our children to have an opportunity to gradually assume more responsibility for the reading as their skill level and confidence increase.

It provides a safe learning environment for our children to practise with the support of teacher and peers, respecting children as co-readers. Less efficient readers, or those for whom English is a second language, read more confidently because they are encouraged to read by the enthusiasm of the group and feel their mistakes go unnoticed.

It introduces our children to a variety of authors, illustrators and types of texts to entice them to become a reader and a writer.

The teacher’s enthusiasm and presentation style demonstrates the joys of reading and what a skilled reader does with a text.

This activity provides a familiar and fluent model for reading with good phrasing and in-tonation for our children to emulate.

It develops a community spirit. We sit close together, sharing responses and movements appropriate to the text they are reading.

Repeated readings help our children to become confident to choose the text independ-ently.

How do we choose texts?

The text is always chosen by the teacher and must be visible to all the children.

Shared reading may focus on needs indicated in assessment data and required by National Cur-riculum expectations.

When selecting texts, teachers should look for a text that is appropriate for the reading level of the children and is also cross-curricular and relevant in its nature. The text should be of an ap-propriate length for study and be adequately complex. It must also have an impact. Stories that

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have predictable plots and patterned language are best because children can participate early on in the shared reading experience.

How do we do it?

The first reading should always involve a debugging or walk through the pictures. The teacher may then read whilst the children simply listen or they may be encouraged to read along imme-diately.

The teacher is recommended to use a pointer to demonstrate directionality in text and one-to-one correspondence.

The more familiar the text, the more the teacher asks of the children in terms of reading, talking and answering questions. They should begin to participate by chanting, providing key words or participating in echo reading. The focus, depending on age and ability, may include: analysis, predictions, drawing inferences, grammar and punctuation, vocabulary development, question-ing, literacy elements, critical thinking, phrasing, fluency, intonation, character and plot devel-opment.

Poetry

As part of our reading programme our children follow a poem scheme. This offers reading, writ-ing, speaking and listening challenges for all reading stages: emergent, early and fluent.

Children will:

Feel comfortable because they know the rhyme.

Develop an understanding of early concepts about print: where to start, point-ing and matching, one to one, pointing from left to right, and return sweep.

Develop an understanding of early concepts about print: where to start, point-ing and matching, one to one, pointing from left to right, and return sweep.

Develop an appreciation for rhyme and rhythm, preparing the way for good phonological awareness.

Develop a memory for text.

Identify high frequency words.

Hear sounds in words.

Experience and understand new interest words which will extend vocabulary.

Develop comprehension skills.

Learn about punctuation.

Learn about spelling patterns.

Practise reading with expression and fluency.

Develop listening skills.

Practise speaking clearly and with expression.

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Extend their knowledge of the world.

Have opportunities for creative development through role play.

Reading by children

Guided Reading

We agree that this provides the optimum conditions for our children to make maximum reading progress and is standard practice.

This provides optimum conditions for a teacher to teach reading in relation to the differentiated needs of the pupil group and their achievement. The teacher works with small groups of chil-dren, who have reached similar stages of reading development, on sets of books that present a successful challenge for the children.

During guided reading we are able to:

Match children and books

Observe the reading strategies that children are using

Demonstrate reading strategies and conventions in context, e.g. letter/sound relation-ships, punctuation, pattern and rhyme, figures of speech

Help children to make connections between life and literature

Discuss the author’s and illustrator’s styles and techniques

Provide opportunities for children to respond

Provide opportunity for silent independent reading

We use the PM reading Scheme (endorsed by the Reading Recovery Network and the Institute of Education) as our base scheme. This is complemented by a combination of the best reading schemes and real books which have meaning and appeal. They are supportive and predictable and can be matched to the reader’s level.

Good instructional texts have:

Illustrations that enhance and support the text

Natural language structures

Supportive storylines such as rhyme, rhythm and repetition

Repeated opportunities for our children to develop their knowledge of high-frequency words

Independent Reading

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We recognize that opportunities should be provided during the school day for children to read independently.

Sometimes the teacher will select the material for the children to read independently, e.g. read-ing around the room.

At other occasions the independent reading of books will spontaneously follow a shared or guided reading session. However, on most occasions, the children will choose their own books for independent reading from a range of appropriate materials in the book corner, in browsing boxes or classroom library.

Individualized reading

Home reading

Children read material which interests them, to assist them in fostering a genuine love of reading and help them to appreciate its value.

All children take home Book Banded (colour-coded) reading books, which are suitable for their reading ability (these books are often from a range of reading schemes).

Children will bring home a variety of reading material to share with parents 4 times a week. This reading material will consist of one book at a time which will be changed regularly. They will be encouraged to change this reading material independently at school to foster responsibility and independence at the earliest possible stage. This will be built into the normal classroom routine.

All children will have a Reading Record diary. Staff and parents will record comments in this reading record as a means to share a child’s reading progress between home and school.

Classroom Management

The physical Environment

In every classroom there is a defined book corner. We strive to make these attractive and invit-ing areas where children can browse and read quietly. We arrange displays to highlight authors, topics, genres etc.

We provide a wide range of reading material: picture books, poetry, songs, folk and fairy tales, myths, legends, plays, modern and classic children’s fiction, non-fiction books. They reflect a variety of cultures and traditions.

We upgrade our permanent collections each year and loans from St. John’s Wood Library sup-plement this. We aim to provide books showing equality of gender, race, religion and class. The children’s own writing is an integral part of this area.

Provision at KS1 will also include:

Big books

Poem and rhyme cards

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Games-commercial and homemade

Assorted letters e.g. magnetic, plastic, wooden

The children are encouraged to take responsibility for our books. They are involved in the set-ting up and maintenance of the book corner.

We aim to make our classrooms language rich environments. Where reading material relates to the real world, e.g. labels, captions, notices, children’s newspapers, instructions, maps, dia-grams, visual display.

The children should be encouraged to refer to the reading materials they have created and to share them with each other.

Reading Book Organization

Guided Reading and Shared Reading

There are resource centres in Years 1, 2, 3 and a KS2 area outside the library. Each teacher has a set of coloured pegs. A peg is placed on the box as a set of books (always take the complete set) is removed.

Home Reading

Colour banded browsing boxes are situated in Year 1 and outside the Year 2-6 classrooms.

How to plan for guided group and independent work

Setting up guided reading may seem a daunting task to begin with but your work will pay enor-mous dividends for both yourself and your children. Once children are independent in their work modes, it will filter through to their reading behavior. The teacher is able to focus solely on the guided reading group.

Factors to influence your planning

Do you have in-class support: Teaching assistant, EAL or SENCO teacher?

What type of literacy resources do you have? e.g. alphabet games, jigsaws, magnetic let-ters

Computer access

Are your children grouped? If not use phonic and word checks, reading behavior obser-vations and running records to match children to level and grouping. There will be movement between your groups as the programme develops.

Practical tips

An essential element of good guided reading is to be well organized. The more organized you are, the more smoothly the guided reading session will run.

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Each guided reading group should have between 4-6 children in it. Give your groups names: famous authors, punctuation, genres

Give each group a leader ( to be changed regularly)

Each group will need a basket, box or container for storing reading books, home/school records and activities.

A browsing box (clearly marked with group name) is recommended containing known books of current level and unknown of level below.

You may wish to introduce a reward system for independent work.

Resources: Ensure your room is labelled and organized so that children may independ-ently access scissors, glue, games etc.

Plan your week in advance; FAMILIARISE YOURSELF WITH BOOKS AND ACCOMPANYING NOTES. Are there activities provided or do you need to create them?

Don’t exhaust yourself constantly thinking of wonderful, aesthetic activities. Activities can be low level tasks; the key aim is to encourage children as soon as possible to be in-dependent from the teacher.

Set up a task-board on the wall or on the interactive white- board.

Partnership with Parents

Parents play a key part in developing their children’s reading skills from a very early age. They are crucial role models and enable children to view reading in a positive way. It is vital for children to have every available opportunity to share reading experiences at home as well as at school in order to foster a love of reading. These opportunities can be found in a variety of ways:

Time is made to talk and extend vocabulary

Print in many forms is used to encourage reading skills

Time is made to read regularly

Stories are read and shared aloud regularly

There is a continual encouragement to read.

Word games are played

Public libraries are joined and bookshops are visited regularly

Reading is seen to be an enjoyable experience for everyone

Children see adults reading for a variety of purposes

Parents meeting

We engage and list our parents’ support by inviting them to twice yearly parent/teacher meetings, reading meetings/ workshops and operating reading communication diaries.

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Planning and assessment

Teachers will ensure that shared and guided reading is planned for. Poetry and guided reading planner (to be customised) are available in Teacher Share: Literacy folder: Reading: Planning. There will be on-going teacher assessment of the skills needed for reading and the ability to read aloud. Opportunities for comprehension activities (oral and written) will be undertaken to assess children’s understanding and skills at finding information.

The Assessment of Reading

All teachers keep a blue reading assessment file.

Electronic files on the Teacher share contain records of children’s reading progress.

Running Records

We assess reading progress and strategies with the PM Benchmark running records. These are carried out:

At the start of the academic year

For the pupil progress and parent/teacher meetings

For the end of year written report

At the teacher’s professional judgement

Word checks

These should be administered up to green band (see appendix).

The Marie Clay Observation test

This may be administered on children between the ages of 5.9-6.3 or who have had 3 terms at school. The results help us to check progress and detect any difficulties with early interaction with print and monitor and evaluate our teaching.

Year 1 Phonics test

The Year 1 children and those of Year 2 who did not reach the required standard in Year 1 take part in the National Phonics screening checks in the summer term. The test in-volves reading 40 real and invented words (we are calling these imaginary creatures) out of context. We value the results in order to monitor progress and fine tune our teaching accordingly. Intervention via booster classes is given in Year 3 to any children who still did not reach the required standard.

Rising Stars Progress tests/ optional tests

SATs

These reading tests are administered in Year 2 & 6.

Reporting Reading Progress

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Children’s progress is recorded in:

Target Tracker

End of year written report

And reported at:

Pupil progress meetings

Parent/ teacher meetings

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APPENDIX 1

Progression of successful text reading through the Book Bands

Old National

Curriculum Level ARE Book Band

Reading

Recovery

Level

Reading Ages

P7 1.Magenta

1 – 2

5.0

-

5.5 yrs

P8

2. Red

3 – 5

Level 1c 1below 3. Yellow. 6 – 8

Level 1c 1 below+ 4. Blue 9 – 11

6.0 yrs

Level 1b 1within 5. Green 12 – 14

6.0-6.5 yrs

Level 1a 1 within+ 6.Orange 15 – 16 6.5 – 7.0 yrs

Level 1a 1 secure 7.Turquoise 17 – 18 7.0 – 7.5 yrs

Level 2c

1 secure +/

2 below 8. Purple 19 – 20 7.5 – 8.0 yrs

Level 2b

2 below +/

2 within 9. Gold 21 – 22 8.0 – 8.5 yrs

Level 2a

2 within+/2

secure 10.White (Silver) 23 – 24 8.5 – 9.0 yrs

Working within 2 secure+/ 11. Lime (Emerald) 25 9.0 – 9.5 yrs

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Level 3 3 below

3 below+ Lime (Emerald) 26 9.5-10.00 yrs

Working towards

Level 4

3 within/ 12. Ruby 27 10.0 – 10.5 yrs

3 secure Ruby 28 10.5-11.0 yrs

Working within

Level 4

Working within

Level 4

3 secure

+/4 below 13.Sapphire

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11.0 – 11.5 yrs

4 below+ Sapphire 30 11.5-12.0 yrs

Working towards

Level 5 4 secure Diamond 12.0 yrs+

Working within

Level 5

4 secure+/5

below Pearl

All reading books throughout FS2 and Key Stages 1 & 2 are book banded according to The National Book Banding. This enables staff to track progress at each child’s individual level.

Children will not necessarily read all books within a specific colour band before moving onto the

next colour. They will read a broad range of reading material, both fiction and non-fiction,

aimed at their individual reading level. This will be monitored regularly by the class teacher.

Appendix 2 Book Band Descriptors – Learning Objectives

BAND 1

PINK

• Locate title

• Open front cover

• Turn the pages

• Understand left page before right

• Understand that print is read from left to right

• Match spoken word to written word

• Locate familiar words and use them to check own reading

• Use meaning of text together with language patterns (syntax)

• Predict storyline and some vocabulary, aided by the illustrations

BAND 6

ORANGE

• Get started on fiction after briefer introductions and without relying so

heavily on illustrations

• Read longer phrases and more complex sentences

• Attend to a greater range of punctuation and text layout

• Cross-check information from meaning, syntax and print on the run

• Search for and use familiar syllables within words to read longer words

• Infer meaning from text

BAND 2

RED

• Locate title

• Locate and recall title

• Consolidate secure control of 1:1 matching

• Use known words to check and control reading

• Start to read more rhythmically or use phrasing while maintaining track

of print

• Repeat words, phrases or sentences to check, confirm or

BAND 7

TURQUOISE(Secure end of Year 1)

• Extract meaning from the text while reading with less dependence on

illustrations

• Approach different genres with increasing flexibility

• Use punctuation and text layout to read with a greater range of

expression and control

• Sustain reading through longer sentence structures and paragraphs

• Tackle a higher ratio of more complex words

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modify own

reading

• Predict from meaning, syntax and print to solve new words

BAND 3

YELLOW(Year 1)

• Follow print with eyes, pointing only at points of difficulty

• Take more note of punctuation

• To support the use of grammar and oral language rhythms

• Cross check all sources of information more quickly while reading

• Note familiar words and letter clusters and use to get to unknown

words, e.g. look, took

• Search for information in print to predict, confirm or attempt new words

while reading

• Notice relationships between one text and another

• Predict in more detail

BAND 8

PURPLE

BAND 9

GOLD

• Look through a variety of texts with growing independence to predict

content, layout and story development

• Read silently or quietly at a more rapid pace, taking note of punctuation

and using it to keep track of longer sentences

• Solve unfamiliar words on the run

• Adapt to fiction, non-fiction or poetic language with growing flexibility

• Take more conscious account of literary effects used by writers

• Begin to make more conscious use of reading to extend speaking and

writing vocabulary and syntax

BAND 4

BLUE

• Move through text attending to meaning, print and sentence structure

flexibly

• Self-correct more rapidly on the run

• Re-read to enhance phrasing and clarify precise meaning

• Solve new words using print information along with attention to

meaning

• Use analogy with known vocabulary to solve new words

• Manage a greater variety of text types

• Discuss content of the text in a manner which indicates precise understanding

BAND 10

WHITE (Secure end of Year 2)

• Look through a variety of texts with growing independence to predict

content, layout and story development

• Read silently most of the time

• Sustain interest in longer text, returning to it easily after a break

• Use text more fully as a reference and as a model

• Search for, and find information in texts more flexibly

• Notice the spelling of unfamiliar words and relate to known words

• Show increased awareness of vocabulary and precise meaning

• Express reasoned opinions about what is read and compare texts

• Offer and discuss interpretations of text

BAND 5

GREEN

• Read fluently with attention to punctuation

• Solve new words using print detail while attending to meaning and

syntax

• Track visually additional lines of print without difficulty

• Manage effectively a growing variety of texts

• Discuss and interpret character and plot more fully

BAND 11

LIME

• Use experience of reading a variety of material to recognise text-type

and predict layout and general content

• Read silently most of the time, adjusting speed of reading to suit

material and monitoring the precise meaning

• Rerun to make different interpretations of dialogue, more complex

sentences, unfamiliar language, etc

• Sustain interest in longer texts, returning easily to them after a break

• Make use of blurbs, chapter headings, glossaries, indexes and

procedural texts to search for and locate information quickly and

accurately

• Take note and devise ways to remember the meaning and spelling of

unfamiliar words

• Express reasoned opinions about what is read, and compare texts

• Investigate and identify the styles and voice of a range of texts types

including plays, poetry, narrative, procedural and explanatory texts