Reading is taught daily for half an hour through an explicit, guided reading lesson as well as through many opportunities throughout the school day in English and wider curriculum areas.

Similarly to English writing, reading is taught through a learning journey and a key text driver. During the first phase of a reading lesson, the class teacher models reading aloud with pace, expression and correct inclination using a section of text. Children practice their fluency skills through reading aloud, reading as a whole class, and partner or small group reading as well as opportunities to read 1:1 with an adult. Using the same section of text, the class will then explore the vocabulary and develop a greater understanding of the meaning and context of the text. They may text mark and analyse specific words or phrases or practice the use of a dictionary.

Class teachers will then use the text the children are familiar with to model and demonstrate a reading skill. This reading skill will be in an area such as:

• Making predictions or inferences
• Summarising
• Retrieving or skimming and scanning to locate information
• Exploring themes and making connections to themselves or the wider world
• Looking at the effect and meaning of language

Children will practice this taught skill and teachers will assess their ability, providing them with a differentiated activity that demonstrates their learning.

Each week children will partake in reading for pleasure opportunities such as sharing books with others, visiting the school library, partaking in discussions about books or asking and answering questions on a text. Children are provided with stage appropriate reading materials but are also given time to browse and make choices about what they read. Reading is celebrated and promoted through whole school events such as World Book Day, Roald Dahl Day, National Storytelling Week or Poetry Week and individual effort and enthusiasm is encouraged through weekly star reader bookmark awards in our achievement assembly. We recently launched our Rainbow Reading Challenge which encourages children to read to collect the different colours of the rainbow.

We also have a number of Reading Ambassadors in year 6 who share their love of reading with others and run a weekly library club.