Reading at Northfield 

READING INTENTION 

At Northfield we have a real passion for reading and ensure we share this with the children. Our aim is that by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently and with confidence, in any subject. We aim to ensure all children at Northfield have a love of reading. To promote this reading permeates through our entire curriculum, children are exposed to and have a access to a wide range of high quality texts.

APPROACHES TO READING

Children are actively encouraged to read for pleasure, regularly, either from their library books, a scheme book, a classroom library book, newspapers, magazines or a book of their choice from home, which has been approved by the class teacher or another responsible adult.

The school has a fully functioning library and each child has opportunity to borrow during a designated library session. Each child learns how to use the facility and can change their book.

Children are given many opportunities to read or to be read to, including:

• during daily reading lessons

• during novel study lessons

• shared reading

• paired reading

• independent reading

• 1 to 1 reading with an adult

• reading to a peer

• class novel shared at the end of the day

• Story Circle

• reading at home time

• reading at the start of the day

TEACHING OF READING 

Our main scheme for phonics and reading is Read Write Inc. Within this scheme children learn to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. Throughout the programme children learn the English alphabetic code (the 150+ graphemes that represent the 44 speech sounds). They rapidly learn sounds and letters or groups of letters they need to represent them, and they use them to read words fluently. Alongside this they are taught high frequency words that are not phonically regular. All of these words and sounds are practised frequently.

All children who do Read Write Inc are given a reading book to take home that is linked to what they are currently learning in school and is matched to the ability of individual children.

When children move off the Read Write Inc programme, a one hour reading lesson is timetabled in each classroom where whole class teaching of a specific reading skill, taken from the National Curriculum, is taught. Children then practise the skill within the lesson. It is planned using a variety of resources and materials which cover a wide range of genres.

Children are encouraged to read at home daily and each child has a planner to record this in. We offer reward schemes for children who read at home, and for those who read more frequently. We believe this is a real motivator to encourage reading and learning at home.