Reading at Leavesden

"Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage."

Roald Dahl

Reading is a fundamental skill for both learning and life. At Leavesden Green, we value the power of reading as a tool to develop knowledge and open our imagination.  We strive to be a ‘Community of Readers’ which develops and shares a love of reading with all our learners. We value the complexity of the process of learning to read. This is reflected in our curriculum for reading as we appreciate the need to develop the necessary skills and behaviours which will ensure we create confident, competent readers with a strong love of reading.

 Reading Provision

We provide a well-rounded experience of reading. Our reading provision includes the following experiences:

Daily Phonics (Reception to Year 2)   Reading Journals Everyone Reads

Book Based Reading Sessions (Reception to Year 2)   Independent Sustained Reading (Year 3-Year 6)

Class Reader   Whole Class Reading Sessions   Reading Assemblies

Reading at Leavesden

reading at leavesden.pdf

Reading Skill Definitions

reading skill definitions.pdf

Phonics at Leavesden

phonics at leavesden.pdf

Whole Class Reading 

We approach the teaching of reading through Whole Class Reading. Through these sessions learners experience a range of text extracts to develop their reading. This consisits of 3 sessions for Year 1 and 5 sessions for Year 2 - Year 6 children, the sessions are:

Session 1 (Year 1 - 6) - Vocabulary Teachers will identify tier 1 (everyday language), tier 2 (ambitious language) and tier 3 vocabulary (subject language) from the text. Children will explore the words from the text in and out of context.

Session 2 (Year 1 - 6) - Guided Prosody This session involves reading aloud together to develop fluency with a focus on volume, pace and expression. Children will read age related text through echo reading, e.g. 'my turn, your turn', and choral reading.

Session 3 (Year 2 - 6) - Developing Comprehension Skills Children will use the skills they have learnt in the previous session to read extracts from the text independently. Children will learn to text mark an extract to show where they may pause or emphasise a word. They are given the opportunity to practise and perform their reading to each other.

Session 4 (Year 1 - 6) - Guided Comprehension Children explore a range of comprehension questions together focusing on using the text to explain how they know. A new skill is taught focusing on the reading skills retrieval, question, compare, infer, analyse, summarise or predict. Children will use the skills they have learnt in the previous session to answer comprehension questions independently.

Session 5 (Year 2 - 6) - Independant Comprehension Children will use the skills they have learnt in the previous session to answer comprehension questions independently.

Spaces to Read

The value we instill in reading is reflected in the spaces we create for reading. 

Libraries and Library Books

Both the Nook and Snug library offer a range of high quality books covering fiction and nonfiction. As well as offering comfortable and engaging spaces to read, the libraries also offer learners the opportunity to borrow books to read at home. We encourage all our learners to borrow books which they can share and enjoy with their families at home.