Reading at Withymoor

Our reading curriculum is designed to ensure that all pupils become confident, capable and enthusiastic readers. Through systematic phonics teaching, children learn to read quickly and accurately, while repeated and purposeful opportunities to read help them develop fluency. As they progress, pupils build strong comprehension skills that enable them to understand, interpret and critically evaluate a wide range of texts. We aim to enrich pupils’ vocabulary and expose them to a diverse selection of high-quality literature, broadening their knowledge, experiences and perspectives. Alongside developing the skills of reading, we are committed to nurturing positive reading habits both in school and at home, fostering a lifelong love of reading. We recognise that children learn to read at different rates and, therefore, provide high-quality first teaching alongside targeted support and intervention to ensure that every pupil can experience success and make strong progress as a reader.

At Withymoor Primary School, we strongly believe that reading is a foundational skill that enables pupils to unlock learning across the curriculum. Our approach to reading is systematic, rigorous and purposeful with sessions that the children enjoy. Children learn best when they can explore texts deeply. We provide all our pupils with high quality teaching which enables children to ‘learn to read’ and ‘read to learn’. We provide a bespoke curriculum that will ensure our pupils become skilled readers and that they are prepared for life beyond our school, their educational journey and into adulthood. In addition to this, our high expectations regarding clarifying and using new vocabulary transfers into writing. We have a clear pathway that enables children to develop into highly skilled, proficient readers:

This reading pathway is further enhanced through our reading for pleasure provision. Through our reading curriculum, pupils access a wide range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts through novels, graphic novels, magazines, library books and online texts. In addition to this, children apply their reading skills such as inference and deduction when exploring carefully selected digital media such as short films. They are given opportunity to engage in high-quality discussion and debate and share their opinions. Pupils can use strategies to make predictions, question ideas and summarise what they have read. Vocabulary is a key focus in our teaching of reading, and we deliberately select a range of vocabulary so that our pupils are taught a language-rich curriculum.