At Wicklea, we aim to develop a lifelong love of reading in our children. Pupils are given a wide range of reading opportunities each week to develop their reading strategies. Throughout each term, they will read with an adult, as well as being read to by their teacher. They will increase their knowledge of texts and reading skills through a range of opportunities and lessons, which are linked to various genres and themes. Children are also encouraged to read regularly at home, sharing their school books with their adults.
At Wicklea, we use Unlocking Letters and Sounds as our phonics scheme. Any child who is not secure with phonics and reached the pass mark on the phonics screening test by the time they join us will have regular phonics interventions to support their reading.
Each year group’s individual reading books will be taken from levelled accelerated reader books. Every other term, pupils will take a star reader test to determine which range within the level they should be reading. They will be given a ZPD level range to select books from.
As soon as a pupil has finished their book, they take a quiz about the book online. this gives them an idea of how well they have read their book and how much of it they understood. This will help inform them of which level book to choose next.
Reading lessons take place four times a week and provide children with the opportunity to discuss books and text extracts while practising different reading skills and strategies. These lessons also focus on developing reading fluency.
Comprehension and understanding feature in these lessons. This helps children in transferring their oral understanding of a book into a written explanation. Pupils have opportunities to apply reading strategies and answer questions that cover some or all of the specific reading objectives and cover a range of text types, fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
In order to foster a love of reading, the children are read to daily by their teacher. Each year group has a set of carefully selected books that the read over the year. These books are chosen from a range of genres and text types in order to reflect the interests of each age group.
Our library is a calm and comfortable space, which the children can enjoy while developing their passion for reading. Across the week, each year group has a designated lunch period to visit the library to browse, read, loan, or return books with the support of our library monitors. They also have the opportunity to visit this space with their class to share a story and explore the range of fiction and non-fiction books it contains.
If you want to look up a book you have found in the library or at home to see if it is in your ZPD, you can use the following link.
http://www.arbookfind.co.uk/default.aspx
