Our Aims
At Keeble Gateway Academy, reading is high priority across school and an integral part of our curriculum offer. We aspire to ensure that every child is a fluent reader by the end of Key Stage One.
We aim:
- To inspire and challenge our children, through a safe, happy and nurturing learning environment.
- To deliver a high-quality phonics programme so children can consistently use phonics to read and write confidently and fluently by the end of Key Stage 1.
- For children to apply their phonics knowledge during reading and writing sessions and across the curriculum.
- To ensure children’s reading books are tailored to their individual secure phonics knowledge, ensuring they are fully decodable.
- To encourage learners to be independent, resilient and have a stamina for reading.
- We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.
Daily Phonics Sessions
- We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
- We follow the Little Wandle progression map which is a fast paced and rigorous approach, ensuring children are highly engaged throughout.
- Phonics is taught consistently across school. All staff use the Little Wandle resources and strategies, such as mnemonics and mantras.
- Pupils in Year 2 progress onto the school spelling curriculum, through our Word Power approach.
- Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
- We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:
- Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
- Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy
Reading Sessions
- We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
- are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
- use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge
- are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
- Each reading practice session has a clear focus so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
- decoding
- prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
- In Reception, these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
- In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.
Home Reading
- Parents are helped to know how best to support children in learning sounds through our phonics workshops throughout the year.
- Reading at home is strongly promoted. Teachers ensure that children understand how to work appropriately with decodable books and with shared texts.
- Decodable reading books are sent home at the end of the week to read at home with their families.
- Children choose a ‘Reading for pleasure’ book from our school library for parents to share and read to their child.
Our Impact
- Phonics teaching is strong, as a result of high quality coaching and CPD.
- Children become fluent readers by the end of KS1.
- Children are passionate about reading. sharing their love of reading with family and friends.
- Phonics screening check results over the last 2 years have been in line with or above national average.
Please click here to read our Phonics and Early Reading Policy.
Support for our Families
Below are some helpful videos and resources which will support you with reading at home with your child.
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.
Phonics is implemented through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. This programme was chosen due to its rigour and systematic approaches, providing our children with a fast paced, ambitious approach with fully aligned resources and decodable reading books. It also provides a well-sequenced, thorough approach to teaching children to read with fluency.
We ensure the teaching of phonics is systematic and consistent across school. The lessons are always taught at a fast pace to ensure children are highly engaged for the sessions. We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. Phonics is taught in a whole class approach.
Nursery
Children in Nursery are immersed in Foundations for Phonics, delivered through taught sessions and in the moment through their play and storytelling.
We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.
Keep Up Sessions
Any gaps in knowledge are addressed through 5-minute boxes (additional to whole-class phonics sessions) from the start of the year in order for children to ‘keep up’ with their peers. This is in line with our whole school KUNCU policy (Keep Up Not Catch Up)
- Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read.
- Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources, and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning. This is extended into Year 2 and 3 for any children for are not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check.
- In addition to Keep up sessions, there are opportunities for repeated practice throughout the day.
- The reading curriculum is ambitious for all.
Assessment
- Teachers assess within the class daily to identify which pupils need Keep-up support.
- We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace. These Summative Assessments take place every six weeks to assess progress and identify gaps.
- Regular progress meetings are held with all reading teachers in KS1 to monitor children’s progress
- The Little Wandle placement assessment is used to assess new pupils or pupils in KS2 requiring additional support.
- Children in Year 1 complete the Phonics screening check in the Summer Term. Any pupils that did not pass are closely monitored and re-sit the test in Year 2.
Our Aims
At Keeble Gateway Academy, reading is high priority across school and an integral part of our curriculum offer. We aspire to ensure that every child is a fluent reader by the end of Key Stage One.
- We aim to inspire and challenge our children, through a safe, happy and nurturing learning environment.
- To engage and excite our children in reading and phonics in order to promote a love of reading for every child.
- To ensure that every child learns to read to a high standard of fluency and understanding, regardless of their background, needs or prior attainment.
- To equip our children with a wide ‘reading diet’ so that they become well rounded readers.
- To close the ‘word gap’ in order to expand pupils' vocabulary and deepen their understanding of the texts they are reading, through pre teaching and our Opportunities Pledge.
- To enable our children to articulate their learning confidently and to remember knowledge and vocabulary in reading and phonics
- To prepare and inspire our children for further learning in reading in secondary school and beyond
Reading in Key Stage 1 and 2: Whole Class Reading
Children are taught reading through a Whole Class Reading sequence, where they answer comprehension questions, linked to the reading domains. These questions require them to think deeply and connect their thinking to evidence from the text.
Whole Class Reading Aims:
- Nurture happy children who have a love of books and reading
- Expose children to high quality texts
- Develop creative and exciting cross-curricular links
- Make links, expand vocabulary and deepen understanding
- Encourage independent learners who are resilient and have a stamina for reading
Whole Class Reading
Classes typically use the same core text used for the writing sequence (3 C’s approach) to support Whole Class Reading. This allows the children to be fully immersed in a text for a three-week cycle, gaining a solid understanding of the text. Comprehension challenges are linked directly to the reading domains.
Whole Class Reading Sequence
1- Vocabulary Check: Teachers begin the process by sharing and unpicking key vocabulary
2- Reading: This may include teacher modelling, independent reading, paired or choral
3- Quick Start Questions: Retrieval focus
4- Questions on Reading Domains: Comprehension challenges are linked directly to the reading domains and assessments are made against these daily.
Super 6: We Love to Read!
At Keeble Gateway, we aim to:
- instil a lifelong love of reading by giving children the opportunity to read high quality texts from a range of genres.
- Give all children the opportunity to be captivated by the great old and gold texts, as well as the new and bold, to allow them to have favourite stories.
Across each half term, each class in EYFS and KS1, reads texts from our ‘Super 6: We Love to Read’ headings. These include: Traditional Tales, Changemakers, Classics, Wellbeing, Diversity and Acceptance, Rhythm and Rhyme.
Each class focuses on a book for a week during their daily Super 6: We Love to Read session. These sessions include best practice from Talk Through Stories and ensure children have a firm understanding of comprehension, inference and vocabulary skills. Classes use the Tales Toolkit to support understanding of key features and themes throughout their daily story sessions.
In Key Stage 2, classes focus on a text linked to one of the above headings for a full half term. During their daily Super 6: We Love to Read session, children explore a variety of skills linked to the book including; vocabulary, inference, prediction, retrieval and summarising.
Reading Skills and Language Comprehension
- Reading is implemented through a holistic approach, whereby children are reading across the curriculum. We focus on developing fluency, confidence, and enjoyment of reading.
- In all classes, there are daily opportunities for teachers to model reading, which gives the children the opportunity to understand what is being read as well as listen to excellent use of expression and intonation.
- There is a daily 15-20 minute story time in each class where adults read aloud.
- Children have a broad reading diet and are exposed to many genres and a range of authors as well as high quality non-fiction texts and poetry.
- introduce new and challenging vocabulary. We will not shy away from words deemed ‘too tricky’.
Reading in the Early Years Foundation Stage
- In EYFS, teachers use our reading spine, which has mapped core texts that promote children's understanding of vocabulary, grammar, the world and global events, as well as improve their ability to communicate effectively. There is a heavy emphasis on revisiting unfamiliar and new vocabulary to support children's Early Language Development.
- Throughout the day in play, through our in-the-moment approach to teaching and learning, and during story time, adults consistently model language, vocabulary, and syntax both from books and stories, seeking to Stories and books are evident in all areas of the classroom to support play-based learning.
- In Nursery, there are planned sessions where children are given 'Time to Talk' about books they have explored and enjoyed, either at home or school.
- In Reception, We Love to Read, is taught through a whole class, daily session. These sessions include best practice from Talk through Stories and ensure children have a firm understanding of basic comprehension, inference and vocabulary skills.
- In the Reception classroom, there are also opportunities for children to blend and read simple words. This builds up over time and is linked to their cumulative phonic knowledge.
Inspiring and Love of Reading
Teachers encourage reading for pleasure and a love of reading across our school by:
- Reading out loud to children at least once a day.
- Providing time and space for children to share their recommendations and opinions
- Using our school library to explore a variety of texts
- Encouraging reading at home. Children take home books that closely match the letter-sound correspondences, but also are also able to take home a ‘reading for pleasure’ book from our Library.
- Developing children’s rich ‘reading diet’ and knowledge of literature. Children are given the opportunity to personally respond to texts, debating and developing links to other texts, authors, and prior knowledge.
- Cosy reading areas contain high quality texts.
- Each class also has a poetry anthology which is read from each day.
- Termly visits to the community library.
Our Reading Ambassadors:
- Ensure the library is neat and tidy and all of the books are in the correct place.
- Ensure that the library is inviting for all students, placing new books on display for all children to access and contributing to displays.
- Foster a love of reading throughout the school by sharing their favourite books with others and recommending novels to other children.
- Lead whole school ‘story-time’ assemblies.
- Are ‘book buddies' for children in Nursery and Reception and help them with their reading.
- Carry out book reviews.
- Assist in the organising and running of Reading events across School.
- Read stories to younger children at lunchtime.
Relevant, real, inspiring books
We are always reviewing our book boxes and library stock to make sure that we are offering our children a wide range of books and stories, in different genres and by various authors. We pride ourselves on ensuring that children have access to books that are both 'Old & Gold' and 'New & Bold'.
Here are some links to recommended books that are appropriate for each year group.
| Top 100 recommended reads for NURSERY |
Top 100 recommended reads for |
Top 100 recommended reads for |
Top 100 recommended reads for |
Top 100 recommended reads for |
