Reading
The School seeks to foster a love of books and of reading from children’s entry to the School. Books may be enjoyed by children on their own or with others. In the early stages, children are encouraged to retell familiar stories using pictures as prompts and to begin to recognise familiar letters and key words within the text. A wide range of fiction and non-fiction books, available to the children in their classrooms and in the two school libraries, supports this love of books, as do ‘big books’ and interactive books which teachers and Early Years practitioners use to model reading skills in the early stages.
The School teaches the children a variety of reading strategies including phonics, whole-word recognition and reading for meaning. Books from a range of published reading schemes are used to structure the development of children’s reading skills and are colour-coded in levels with different styles of book, fiction and non-fiction, within each level. Children are encouraged to choose a book to read from those at their level and sets of books are used for group guided reading sessions in class. The teacher assesses when a child is ready to move to another level. These levels support reading development until children are sufficiently fluent and independent to choose their books solely from the school or class library. Children read to staff and volunteers, and reading is monitored closely. Detailed assessments are made each term to measure progress.
Parents and children are asked to return their books and reading records in good time to allow teachers to read comments and respond to them and support children to choose their next book The School's Homework Scheme details how much time children are expected to spend on reading at home each week. It is also beneficial for children to have stories read aloud to them, or to use their developing skills in other contexts, eg to follow a recipe, read instructions for a number game or carry out research into a topic.
Children are able to borrow books from one of the two libraries to take home to share or read alone. Class sessions in the library enable children to develop library skills, reinforced by open sessions and library clubs when the children are able to access the library at lunchtimes or after school. Teachers, teaching assistants and our School Librarian promote reading through sharing books by reading aloud, focuses on authors and by encouraging peer recommendations and book reviews.
We welcome authors to the school to speak to the children about their work and to lead workshops during our annual Book Week and also encourage parents and volunteers from the local community to read to and with children and to discuss the books they share together. Older pupils read to younger ones through class ‘twinning’. The annual Hounslow Book Awards also provides an opportunity for older children to read and review newly published books and to share their opinions with others.
We offer in-house training for parent volunteers who would like to offer regular reading support from our specialist reading teacher and also have a volunteer provided through the Beanstalk scheme. Our reading teacher delivers an individualised programme to a small group of identified pupils in Years 1 and 2 through the Every Child a Reader initiative.
New Children’s Fiction for Spring 2020!
Please visit the website below for recommendations of high quality texts to look out for from January to March.
https://www.booksfortopics.com/post/ones-to-watch-new-children-s-fiction-for-spring-2020