Taken from Pupil Voice:
“In poetry we did rhyme, which we love. It is fascinating how words fit together.”
DEVELOPING A LOVE OF READING
At Northside Primary School, we know a child’s reading experience is fundamental to the development of imagination, understanding of life and development of a positive growth mindset for life.
Reading is much more than the books which come home from school, it is in everything we do! Therefore, we encourage reading throughout our school day and curriculum here at Northside. We embrace reading and celebrate books in all areas of school life! We read books about difference and delve into a range of authors throughout the children’s journey with us. Different genres are covered in English lessons and children are constantly practising their reading skills across all subjects. Dual language books are used to promote our language skills and allow children to experience familiar stories in different languages.
At Northside Primary school we strive to nurture the love of reading in every child through our reading rich curriculum, quality reading resources and stimulating environment. We aim to:
- Provide all children with the skills and strategies to read with confidence, fluency and understanding
- Create a positive reading culture where children enjoy reading, want to read regularly and discuss their reading
- Encourage reading outside the classroom through forging strong links with home.
- Establish a love of books where children choose to read for pleasure
EARLY READING
Early reading begins with a love of nursery rhymes, songs, poems and jingles. Children begin to repeat words or phrases. Children are encouraged to take note of the environment around them noticing logos, illustrations, marks and print. As they begin to listen to stories with increasing attention and recall, children can suggest how stories might end and begin to have an understanding of how stories are structured.
In nursery, children are given picture books to bring home. This allows the children to understand how to hold a book, understand its title and they can discuss the pictures with family members.
PHONICS
Phonics is the beginning of children’s body of knowledge, skills and understanding and the foundations of enabling a child to develop the essential life skills of reading and writing. At Northside, we aim to teach high quality phonics to ensure that every child has the best start possible in reading and writing, to enable them to become confident, independent learners. Phonics is taught daily following the nationally accredited Little Wandle scheme. As the children’s phonics fluency greatens the children are given matching decodable books according to their level of reading. Once children are confident with phonics, the children then begin our book banded scheme. We have a vast range of books for the children to read to encourage their love for reading.
Phonics is continuously assessed using children’s application and development of phonic knowledge. Children’s progress is monitored half termly to inform subsequent planning and next steps.
WHOLE CLASS READ
Whole class reading is an approach to teaching Guided Reading to the whole class rather than teaching reading in set groups. Each class study a range of texts across the year, including classic novels and stories with diversity. Children take part in a Whole Class Reading session at least twice a week. We focus on Whole Class Reading to support the learning of key reading skills: vocabulary, infer, predict, explain, retrieve and summarise. This approach has had a great impact on reading lessons at Northside – children are hooked on their class stories!
HOME/ INDEPENDENT READING
Every individual child has a school reading book that is banded to match their reading ability. Children change their books when they have finished them. There are a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry books in each book band. We have a huge collection of books to match the interests of children.
