Intent
All pupils at Quarry Mount Primary School are taught to read fluently, expressively and are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop: knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live; to establish an appreciation and love of reading; to gain knowledge across the curriculum; and to develop their comprehension skills. We are committed to providing vocabulary rich reading which will prepare the children for the next stage in their education and beyond. Quarry Mount puts reading at the heart of the curriculum as we believe it is an integral part of school and a fundamental life skill that impacts on all areas of learning. Our aim is to inspire a true love of reading, whereby our children are enthusiastic and motivated readers who feel confident to be able to discuss books and authors. We ensure that our children are exposed to a wide range of high quality books that are both challenging and exciting for all readers. We want children to enjoy reading; reading for pleasure and reading to learn. We recognise the significance of reading wide and often and so ensure our curriculum is broad and balanced. Therefore, our cross curricular approach has been designed to instil reading across all subject areas. Consequently, this enhances our children’s vocabulary through exposure to high quality texts. Vocabulary has been highlighted as a key area in developing language for all children in order to fully understand more challenging texts. We value the importance of being a confident reader and work hard to develop children’s comprehension skills. In Key Stage 1, we strive to develop our children’s phonetic skills which leads to them develop their fluency and reading accuracy.

Implementation 

At Quarry Mount, we have developed a reading curriculum which ensures all classes are exposed to high quality texts, across a wide range of genres throughout the year. We have a particular focus on British authors in Spring 1 to expose children to a range of British authors during their time at school. We have enhanced the experience of reading poetry by inviting the poet James Nash into classrooms to work with children to appreciate poetry and delve deeper into understanding poetry. We foster a love of reading in school by holding events throughout the year including; bedtime stories, book fairs, reading clubs, Harry Potter themed nights, reading bingo challenges and World Book Day competitions. We have recently renovated our school library into an engaging and stimulating area where children can enjoy and appreciate a variety of books. Each class also has their very own book corner to engage children with reading for pleasure. We hold regular book corner competitions, judged by the school council.

In Reception and Year 1 there is a greater emphasis on phonics; this is then built upon and consolidated throughout school. Phonics in Reception and Year 1 is taught daily. Children revisit previous learning, learn new skills, practise and apply their knowledge following Floppy’s Phonics. Children are given a decodable reading book which is specifically matched to the phonics level they are working at. After the children have successfully learned all sounds in levels 2-5, they are then moved onto a colour banded book.

Years 2-6 take part in daily whole class reading sessions where they have the opportunity to widen their experience of reading alongside their peers. We have a skills based approach to reading using the VIPERS set of skills:

Reading Lessons

In Years 3-6 (and Year 2 after the Autumn term), we have explicit whole class daily reading sessions. Session 1 introduces the text with quality whole class and group discussion. Teachers model ‘Read aloud, think aloud’ strategies to support children to understand the text they are reading. The following sessions focus on vocabulary and key ‘VIPERS’ skills. VIPERS stands for: 
Vocabulary 
Infer
Predict
Explain
Retrieve 
Summerise 

Stop, Drop and Read takes place in every class, every day at 3pm. This is a time for all children in school to enjoy listening to a high quality book read to them by their teacher. It sends a message that reading for pleasure is important, and something everyone should make time for.

Impact
At Quarry mount, impact is measured by termly tests and reading fluency checks (words per minute) in years 1-6 as well as phonics outcomes in EYFS and Year 1. Target Tracker is used to record the progress that children are making in word reading and comprehension. This will record whether the children are working towards age related expectations, at the expected expectation or exceeding age related expectations. These judgements will be quality assured by the subject leader and SLT using first-hand evidence of how pupils are progressing, drawing together evidence from pupil interviews, lesson observations, in school moderation by staff and work scrutinies. Termly pupil progress meetings are held to discuss the progress of children in reading, highlighting an ‘urgent list’ of children who are not making expected progress and discussions include how to support children to make accelerated progress in the future.

As a result, we aim to create a community of confident, enthusiastic readers who enjoy showcasing and developing their literacy skills. We want children to utilise and use their speaking and listening skills to solve problems, speculate, share ideas, make decisions and reflect on what is important. We want all children to develop their critical thinking, creatively and understanding of the world in order to reach their full potential and achieve their aspirations.

• Brilliant Book List QM.pdf