Reading
At St. John Bosco we love to read!
We begin teaching reading with a focus on phonics and we use Ruth Miskin’s Read Write Inc (RWI) programme. The foundations are laid in Nursery where the focus is, first of all, on developing careful and accurate listening and having fun with sounds, words and sentences. The children learn good reading behaviour by imitating our teachers’ excellent models. Our children are encouraged to ‘read’ words and captions around our text rich learning environment and to compose their own. Our young children soon learn to share our love for reading.
The phonics programme continues in Reception and into Key Stage 1.
Parents occasionally join their children for phonic sessions so that they are better able to help their children at home. The children are assessed every half term in order to effectively track progress and are grouped accordingly. Our phonics screening check results are strong each year and continue to stay above the national average.
Once children are off the programme in Year 2, they continue with Ruth Miskin’s Literacy and Language in order to prepare them for Literacy lessons in Key Stage 2.
During the Early Years and Key Stage 1, children not only take an RWI phonics book home for practise, they are also given reading books weekly to continue their reading development at home with their families. Most of these books are Oxford Reading Tree books, and children are assessed half-termly to ensure they are on the correct reading band.
In Key Stage 2, children are given the opportunity to change their own books within their reading band and once they get to a certain reading age they become a ‘free reader’ meaning they can choose any book from the school library. In addition to this we take a group of children (Years 2 to 6) to visit the local library every week. Children sign their names up on a list in the corridor if they wish to visit the library and can return or change them when they have finished reading.
We have recently introduced a new approach to whole class reading. The following classes have paired up to read together and complete different activities based on their chosen books.
- Years 1 and 2 – The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
- Years 3 and 4 – Grandpa’s Great Escape by David Walliams
- Years 5 and 6 – Wonder by R J Palacio
Children show great enthusiasm in these reading sessions and look forward to spending time with their ‘reading buddies’. Each classroom has a display or a working wall based on their class books.
Also see: Reading Handout for Parents
Our School Library
We have lots of books in our school library. Our corridors are bright and colourful and we have some fantastic Roald Dahl inspired paintings.
Reading Around School
Children love to read in the Early Years. They can help themselves to books in the reading area and settle down on cushions as they read.
In Key Stage 1 children have a range of different comprehension questions to answer whilst reading their books. Both classes have an interactive display based on their class book (The Cat in the Hat).
Reading displays in Key Stage 2 have some very high quality pieces of writing on them which have been inspired by their class books. Children can also help themselves to books from the class libraries during reading time in class.
Outdoor Libraries
We have our outdoor libraries on both the KS1 and KS2 playgrounds.
All children can visit the library every lunch time if they wish.
Our trained Year 6 librarians do a fantastic job and often support the younger children with their reading too.
