At Hamstead Primary School we believe that reading is a fundamental skill for all pupils.
Our reading curriculum allows pupils to explore reading through the breadth of the National Curriculum enabling our pupils the right to be literate and foster a lifelong love of reading. Our reading curriculum will be taught through a pedagogy that excites, promotes and sustains pupils’ interest. At Hamstead Primary reading is taught formally, but also with a strong focus on reading for pleasure. We do this through our range of diverse class readers and DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) sessions.
In Early Years and KS1, phonic sessions are taught daily to enable pupils at a young age to develop and embed good decoding skills and become fluent readers. This is taught through a systematic synthetic programme ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’.
In Key Stage 2, reading is taught daily. Pupil’s practice reading fluency so they can read accurately and with automaticity. Extended reading lessons follow fluency practice and increase in frequency as pupils become more fluent. This involves prolonged engagement with a longer text and focusses on stamina, fluency, component word knowledge, background knowledge and text knowledge through extended exposure to a text. Each reading lesson has a focus on exploring, developing and understanding a broad range of vocabulary. The sequence concludes with an application of learning where the pupils showcase their understanding of skills and knowledge gained.
Class texts used at Hamstead Primary are selected by considering wider social issues such as social injustice and stereotypes; with other texts also selected to support and enhance the learning of the wider curriculum.
At Hamstead Primary, pupils and staff are encouraged to read for pleasure to broaden their knowledge of children’s literature. This is built into our reading offer whereby pupils discover enjoyment of reading through regular book talk and exposure to contemporary and classic literature. Reading for pleasure is further prompted where children can independently choose a book from our on-site Reading Bus.
Each pupil takes a new reading book home regularly to read with parents/carers. A reading guide and accompanying communication book articulate the link between learning in school and home.
