Reading
Reading Intent
At Coniston Primary School, our ultimate aim is to create a community of life-long readers by providing an ethos and environment that excites, enthuses and inspires children to read. Through developing a passion for reading, we aim to connect children to the wider community, increase their understanding of their own identity and develop their ability to think critically. Ultimately, we are striving to ensure that children leave our school as passionate, fluent and confident readers.
Reading Fluency Lessons – Years 4-6
In Year 4, pupils begin whole-class reading fluency lessons. These lessons aim to further develop pupils’ accuracy, automaticity and prosody. Teaching strategies include repeated reading, echo reading, rehearsed reading, emotion reading and text marking. There are three lessons in each sequence, including expert teacher modelling of reading in the first, progressing to independent practice. Assessments take place termly and measure words per minute alongside a rubric to record pupils’ expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness and pace.
Fluency Teaching Sequence
Reading Lessons – Years 4-6
At Coniston, reading lessons develop pupils’ comprehension skills with reading lessons that include well-planned scaffolding and explanation of a range of varied texts. The intent of the lessons is to allow pupils to create a mental model of what is being read to them and what they are reading independently. This is done by providing the pupils with a varied weekly reading diet including elements of: providing relevant background knowledge, explicit vocabulary instruction, verbal reasoning and theory of mind amongst others. Throughout the teaching sequence, expert teacher modelling moves to independent practice where pupils are able to continually build and develop a mental model of what is being read.
Weekly Reading Diet
Reading for Pleasure Culture
At Coniston, we provide pupils with a rich reading diet with the aim of igniting a genuine passion for reading. We understand the importance of creating comfortable environments which allow for informal book talk to allow our community of readers to flourish. Books have been chosen carefully and allow pupils to encounter relatable characters and a range of diverse perspectives to gain a broad-ranging view of the world that we live in.
Book Club and Story Time
Book Club takes place for all pupils for a minimum of 30 minutes a week in the school library. The school library is stocked with a wide-range of short texts and picture books, organised into categories of the school’s drivers of Sustainability, Diversity and Health. There are also sections for poetry, familiar stories, geography, history and science. During book club, teachers promote new books to pupils and make recommendations, allocate time for individual, paired or small group discovery of new books and invite pupils to share recommendations. Our school timetables also have a 20 minute protected story time each day for teachers to inspire pupils reading using books from our core-text-list.
Classroom Reading Areas
Each classroom has a designated reading area designed to mirror a book shop. Books are easily accessible and displayed alongside recommendations from pupils and teaching staff. Pupils are able to share these books in the classroom, take them home to share with their families or read independently.
