Emscote Infant School
and
All Saints' C of E Junior School
Reading
Reading at All Saints’ CE Junior School
At All Saints’ we are passionate about teaching children to read and helping to develop their love of reading. Our aim is to ensure all children develop their understanding of texts by reading widely and often from a young age.
We greatly value parental partnership when it comes to the children’s learning and one area where your support is vital is helping to develop their ability to read.
The more children practise reading with an adult, the more fluent they become and the more confident they are at answering questions about the books they are reading. Even as children become more independent, this support is still crucial to help them to further develop their comprehension skills.
On this page you will find some key information and advice about how to support your child at home with reading. Reading for just ten minutes a day with your child makes a huge difference.
Comprehension – Understanding of Texts
The simple view of reading (above) shows the two main aspects of learning to read: language comprehension and word recognition. In order to be a successful, independent reader, children should be in the upper right quadrant (good word recognition and good language comprehension).
Word recognition refers to reading fluency and decoding and is developed through teaching of phonics, spelling rules and common exception words.
Children who are not yet secure in their knowledge, understanding and use of phonic skills will receive 1:1 interventions using ‘Read, Write Inc phonic tuition’ to help them to improve their fluency in reading.
Comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of the words, sentences, ideas, information and themes in a text. Your child might sound like a good reader but may not necessarily understand what the text means - being able to read aloud with expression does not mean you understand what you read.
At All Saints’, your child will practise his/her language comprehension skills as part of regular guided reading lessons and skills will be taught through specific focus on each of the reading domains shown below. The key skills are often referred to using the acronym - ‘VIPERS’:
At home, when reading with your child, you may find it helpful to use the prompt questions below for each of the reading domains in VIPERS. In this way, you will be helping to develop, not only fluency, but also your child’s language comprehension skills.
Reading Books
Our library contains a wide selection of books to engage all readers. Staff and other children are always available to support choice of reading books, making recommendations and enjoying conversations about books. We use Accelerated Reader in school; this is a computer program that helps our teachers to manage and monitor children’s independent reading practice.
How does Accelerated Reader (AR) work?
All children complete an online ‘Star reading’ assessment each term. This assessment uses computer-adaptive technology, meaning that questions continually adjust to your child’s responses. If the child’s response is correct, the difficulty level is increased. If the child misses a question, the difficulty level is reduced. The test uses multiple-choice questions and takes approximately 15 minutes.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
ZPD is the range of books that will challenge your child without causing frustration or loss of motivation. Your child will receive a ZPD range after taking a Star Reading test and this guides them when selecting books from the library. As outlined above, it’s important for children to read with a high degree of fluency and language comprehension within their ZPDs, having reading books which are neither too easy nor too challenging.
What next?
- Your child picks a book at his/her own (ZPD) level and reads it at his/her own pace.
- When finished, your child takes a short quiz on the computer. (Passing the quiz is an indication that your child understood what was read.)
- Accelerated Reader gives children and teachers feedback based on the quiz results, which the teacher then uses to help your child set goals and direct ongoing reading practice.
AR and Reading for Pleasure:
- Children using Accelerated Reader choose their own books to read, rather than having one assigned to them. This makes reading a much more enjoyable experience as they can choose books that are interesting to them.
- Teachers will help your child choose books at an appropriate readability level that are challenging without being frustrating, ensuring that your child can pass the quiz and experience success
Reading Expectations at All Saints’:
- For children in Year 3, who are reading shorter books, we would recommend reading each book at least twice – firstly to focus on fluency and the second time round to check for comprehension by asking questions (using the VIPER headings).
- Children are expected to read at home at least 3 times a week, this should be recorded in the back of their homework books.
- We also encourage you to supplement your child’s reading book with books from home and/or the library in Warwick or Leamington; this will help children to experience a widening range of authors, genres and text types. These books do not need to be restricted to your child’s ZPD; sharing ambitious books can help to develop a love of reading, as long as they are not floundering, trying to read through independently. As always, we aim to reduce frustration and loss of motivation, thereby helping to develop an ethos of reading for pleasure.
- There is also a range of excellent websites, where age-appropriate book recommendations can be found. Here is a selection:
https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk
https://www.booktrust.org.uk
http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.
https://www.clpe.org.uk
https://booksfortopics.com
Reading in school
- Alongside individual reading, there is allocated time for Guided/Shared reading. These sessions include work on different reading domains. Activities concentrate on developing key vocabulary, inference, predictions, retrieval and summarising texts, as well as key skills such as skimming and scanning.
- Through English lessons, children are also taught these skills, focusing on key texts that link to written work. These include fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts.
Reading for Pleasure:
- Children are introduced to different authors through ‘Book of the week’, children are able to vote for their favourite book to be read aloud by the class teacher, helping to promote reading for pleasure.
- Children are actively encouraged to discuss and promote the books they are reading, teachers plan regular opportunities for these discussions and ‘relaxing reading’ promotes reading for pleasure.
- Warwickshire Junior Book award, World Book Day and scholastic book fairs
Warwickshire Junior Book Award
Every year, we participate in the Warwickshire Junior Book Award. A trained and experienced team at Warwickshire Library Services (SLS) carefully select four titles for the shortlist. Twelve of our enthusiastic Year 5 children read these books and vote for their favourite. The winner is decided solely by Warwickshire children and this makes the Award really special! Schools from across Warwickshire take part and are invited to the Final Award Ceremony, where shortlisted authors are invited to attend. This is always a lovely event and a fantastic celebration of reading that inspires young people across Warwickshire – especially our own! It encourages children to read different authors or genres to broaden their experience of reading and the books are then put into our library for all children to share.
Warwickshire Junior Book Awards, 2023
Once again, the Year 5 children took part in the Warwickshire Junior Books Awards in the Summer term 2023. Year 5 children had the opportunity to read four books by new and inspiring authors and then attended the book awards in Rugby where they met the authors and voted for their favourite book. The children absolutely loved this (as did the adults) and the presentation given by each author was incredibly enthusiastic and inspiring. After a question and answer session, the children had the opportunity to meet their favourite authors and get their books signed. It was a thoroughly enjoyable morning and we look forward to attending again next year.
We take part in World Book Day every year, having fun though book talk, sharing and recommending books and often dressing up as our favourite characters.
The staff enjoy dressing up as much as the children! Can you tell which book their character is from?