“Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.”

Barack Obama

INTENT

At Huntington Primary Academy, reading is the golden thread of our school. We strive to develop a life-long love of reading and provide our children with a wealth and breadth of high quality texts and reading experiences.

How our curriculum is connected through our values:

Reading is a way of connecting with others, understand different perspectives, and strengthen our sense of belonging to both our community and the wider world.
Reading is a gateway to embracing diversity and opportunity, helping us explore different cultures, ideas, and experiences.
Reading is a powerful way to encourage independence and curiosity, allowing us to explore ideas freely, ask questions, and discover the world on our own terms.
Reading is key to personal and academic success, building knowledge, confidence, and the skills needed to achieve our goals and reach our full potential.

IMPLEMENTATION

To deliver high quality reading sessions and to ensure success in reading across the school we teach to the challenge checklist:

    1. Teach with fidelity to an SSP programme
    2. Make a strong start in Reception
    3. Ensure cumulative progression of sounds and books
    4. Build a team of expert reading teachers
    5. Reach the lowest 20%
    6. Build talking and listening into all activities across the whole day
    7. Develop pupils’ listening, comprehension and language by reading aloud and talking about stories, poems and non-fiction books

Whole Class Reading Approach

A range (fiction and non-fiction) of high quality texts are explored in whole class reading sessions, with a particular focus on vocabulary. Whole class reading strategies including VIPERS are used to help continue to build the children’s’ fluency whilst reading aloud. VIPERS is an acronym to support the recall of the six reading domains (which form the UK’s reading curriculum) – Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise. They are the key areas which we feel children need to succeed in if they are to improve their comprehension of texts. Following this approach ensures that a range of question stems are covered and that skills are explicitly taught. Children are encouraged in lessons to discuss which VIPERS are being used in questions.

Reading for Pleasure 

At Huntington, we believe in promoting and encouraging a love for reading. Opportunities to read for pleasure are planned into each class’ weekly timetable. Book lists are shared with parents  and pupil and teacher recommendations are discussed in the reading for pleasure sessions. Each classroom has a mini book shop which children can explore and which promotes high quality texts. It includes four main domains: whole class reading (familiar texts), recommended reads, find out more (texts linked to the topics) and book bands. We have a strong link with the library across the road and participate in their reading challenges and also host our own reading competitions to encourage children to involve themselves in reading.

IMPACT

Children leave our school being able to read and show increasing confidence, resilience and independence in both their reading and their reading skills so that they continue to become lifelong readers. They develop a love of reading that has been encouraged and nurtured throughout school and develop their own preferences of what genre or topic they like to read. Our children can relate reading experiences to their own development, develop empathy for characters and make links to their own behaviours. Children always find success and pleasure with reading by being provided with a book carefully matched to their phonics knowledge. The rigorous structure of our phonics programme allows children to tackle any unfamiliar word and master the basics of reading from the moment they start in Early Years. Our regular assessment ensures every child learns to read and children who require extra support with this are identified, prioritised and supported effectively. We provide parents and carers with skills to support their children with home reading and ensure the gaps in progress of different pupils is minimal. Reading is at the heart of our school and children leave having thrived on regular opportunities to develop their skills and build a wide and ever increasing vocabulary as a result. Children can use books to unlock learning across the curriculum and beyond.

Reading Curriculum Progression Map

Reading Overview