Reading Framework

Teaching the Foundations of Literacy

 

Why Does Reading Matter?

To everyone at Alston Moor Federation, reading matters emotionally, culturally and educationally. We promote finding a Love of Reading in a Language-Rich Environment. Children who find a love of reading - and are good at it - tend to do more of it, expanding their vocabulary, improving their language skills and deepening their comprehension. Conversely, those who do not enjoy reading and struggle with it, are more likely to find challenges across the whole of the National Curriculum.

This is why the national curriculum says: It is essential that, by the end of their primary education, all pupils are given opportunities to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject.

The progress of our young readers depends on the adults at Alston Moor Federation engaging them in high-quality dialogue and providing a language-rich environment, enabling them to articulate what they know and understand, and develop their knowledge across all areas of learning, using the vocabulary they need to support learning.

Critical to this are children’s back-and-forth interactions with adults, as these form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations is crucial.

These back-and-forth interactions include:

  • the teacher modelling language for the children by thinking aloud or explaining something;
  • rephrasing and extending what the children say;
  • asking questions, both open and closed, and answering questions;
  • connecting events and ideas: ‘Isn’t that like…?’ or, ‘Do you remember when we…?’

 Listening

Learning the routine of back-and-forth talk between peers is a vital skill and is particularly important for children who have not experienced it before coming to school. Ways to support children in back-and-forth talk include:

  • deciding on a signal to alert children to listen – Team Stop;
  • showing children what good listening looks like through the teacher’s own behaviour: ‘Wait a minute, I need to listen carefully.’ ‘Let’s be quiet so I can concentrate on what you’re saying.’ • introducing paired talk or getting children to feed back to the group;
  • reinforcing and praising good listening.
  • Reading Buddies – children given opportunities to read and share stories with each other across the primary school

Putting children in pairs, ready for responding together, encourages them to discuss a question, problem or idea, and to agree on their joint response.

Story Time

Literature is probably the most powerful medium through which children have a chance to inhabit the lives of those similar and dissimilar to themselves. It is a wonderful experience for children to be able to imagine themselves as the main protagonist of a story and having adventures, but it is also essential that they learn about the lives of those whose experiences and perspectives differ from their own. Choosing stories and non-fiction that explore such differences can help begin to break down a sense of otherness, which in itself can lead to division and prejudice. The challenge is to make sure that the right books support all children to thrive, whatever their background.

How to choose a class novel:

  • Identify a core set of stories for each year group.
  • Consider a range of stories set in the UK and around the world, both traditional and modern, as well as non-fiction texts.
  • Refresh the list regularly, preferably once a year as a minimum, to consider newly published books, new teachers joining the school and to avoid year group lists becoming set in stone.
  • Encourage teachers to familiarise themselves with the stories their class will know from previous years.
  • Supplement the core ‘read aloud’ stories with others of the teacher’s choice.
  • Consider sharing the list with parents, and explaining its purpose, so they could buy or borrow the books.

Reading Corners

Every Reading Corner is akin to a mini-library (found in every classroom) - a place for children to browse the best books, revisit the ones that the teacher has read to them and borrow books to read or retell at home. Every child is able to spend time in their Reading Corner. Children can share books with others, especially if they are ‘books in common’ that they know their friends have heard of before. They will also be interested to look at books which feature well-known fictional characters or are new and tempting. Every book in a book corner is worth reading aloud. Our focus will always be on what would make the biggest difference to children’s reading habits, including:

  • not displaying too many books at once;
  • refreshing the display (some linked to new topics etc);
  • making the books attractive and easy for children to find.

Poetry and Rhyme

Through enjoying rhymes, poems and songs, as well as reciting poems or parts of longer poems together as a class, teachers can build children’s strong emotional connection to language.

Poems and rhymes help children to memorise words and phrases, heighten awareness of individual sounds through alliteration and rhyme, understand meaning and mood through rhythm and develop their vocal skills when they join in or rehearse as a class.

Teachers identify a core set of poems for each year group, including rhyming poems, poems where alliteration is a strong feature, word games, traditional songs and rhymes, nonsense rhymes and poems that are particularly rhythmical. Those chosen are able to withstand a lot of repetition, elicit a strong response and extend children’s vocabulary in different areas of learning.

Word reading and Spelling

Phonics gives children the key to unlocking the alphabetic code for their reading and spelling. This is why teaching phonics for reading and spelling is a cornerstone of the programmes of study for English in the national curriculum.

Our school’s teaching of early reading and synthetic phonics is systematic, and ensures that all children learn to read words and simple sentences accurately by the end of reception.

Our teaching of the RWI systematic synthetic phonics programme is:

  • taught daily from reception - these can start as 10-minute sessions, building to roughly an hour by the end of the year;
  • high-quality - class or group teaching is efficient and effective, but this does not undermine the value of one-to-one or small-group interventions/boosters;
  • led by teachers who participate in the sessions using the ‘call and response’ method;
  • led with a clear lesson objective - children have the opportunity to use their prior knowledge from previous learning and new learning is given in bite-sized chunks;
  • have an assessment structure in place so the teacher knows exactly where each pupil is placed;
  • include sufficient ‘decodable’ books or texts, so that children can practise, at school and at home, their increasing knowledge of GPCs and their blending skill in meaningful contexts.

 

Written Composition

Before they can write independently in a way that can be read by others, children need to know:

  • what they want to say;
  • how to identify sounds in words;
  • at least one way to spell each of the sounds of English;
  • how to form letters.

Expecting children to write at length early on results in cognitive overload and might damage their motivation to write, both at this stage and later. Extra time for writing is unnecessary at this early stage. Primarily, we support children to compose sentences out loud, without requiring them to write. As their spelling develops, they can begin to write sentences using the GPCs they have been taught so far, spelling some words in a phonetically plausible way, even if sometimes incorrectly, for example: ‘me and my frens went in a cafai and had caix’. As children’s knowledge of the alphabetic code increases, teachers encourage correct spelling.

 Children with special educational needs and disabilities

Literacy is as important for children with SEND as their peers and, for this reason, staff are ambitious about their progress as it is a critical skill in preparing them for adulthood.

Consensus (between academics and teachers) is growing that the best method to begin phonics for children with SEND is a systematic synthetic phonics programme. Evidence suggests that most children with moderate to severe and complex needs are not ‘visual learners’ as originally thought.

When teaching children with SEND we:

  • progress systematically with small, cumulative steps;
  • use routines that become familiar;
  • provide materials that limit distraction;
  • provide opportunities for overlearning (recall, retrieval, practice and application at the level of the alphabetic code, word, sentence and text);
  • progress at a suitable pace for each child;
  • take account of each individual’s strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, understanding and need.

Developing Fluency

Fluent decoding allows us to understand what we read. Because the reader has gained accuracy and automaticity (involuntary) in word reading, the brain’s resources are available to focus on lifting the meaning from the page, connecting the words, sentences and text. As children gain fluency, their motivation increases; they start to enjoy reading more and are willing to do more of it.

There is no magic point where a child becomes a fluent reader, so a progressive approach is made alongside frequency. Children will start by sounding and blending a word; later, they may be able to approach this word ‘at a glance’. When a child sounds and blends, they are more likely to remember the word to read ‘at a glance’ if they know what the word means, which is why building vocabulary is so important.

Regular (formative), and less regular (summative) assessment, is used to determine which children are at risk of falling behind in reading. Teachers investigate the possible reasons for this (for example, visual/audio impairment or speech, language and communication needs) and then intervene as quickly as possible.

After year 1, every other subject depends on the child’s ability to read and comprehend. ‘School leaders and special educational needs coordinators in our school take responsibility for making sure all these pupils make good progress by ensuring they get access to the support they require.