Reading Intent

At Meadlands, reading is more than a curriculum subject; it is a way of life. Reading for pleasure is at the heart of everything we do, for we believe that a child who reads for pleasure will be more successful in all aspects of life. It comes as no surprise that reading permeates our whole curriculum. Our intent is that reading is highly valued by our pupils, parents and staff, with pupils leaving us at the end of Key Stage 2 as competent, confident readers. This will be reflected in both our reading results and the fact that pupils will choose to pick up a book as a way of exploring new worlds, ideas and characters.

Reading Implementation

Storytelling and phonics

Phonics starts in Nursery where pupils learn Read Write Inc. Set 1 sounds helped by cued articulation. In Reception pupils learn a new sound a day, which are recapped in Year One. They are also introduced to “tricky” words — words which have to be learnt rather than spelt out. As each new sound/word is taught, pupils continually revise and practise the previous sounds. As they become more confident, they begin to segment words into sounds in order to write whole words. As children move into Year Two, they begin to learn spelling rules and alternative sounds.

Whole class reading

In Key Stage Two, reading is taught through whole class reading approach; developing their inference and retrieval skills. Whole class reading happens every day for 30 minutes at Meadlands. Whole class reading gives the class a chance to share a book as a community, whilst the class teacher has an opportunity to hear all pupils read and discuss the book, whilst developing their love of reading and promoting wellbeing.

Reading for pleasure

Reading at Meadlands is not simply taught through sitting with a text, children are instead shown how reading can be brought to life through every aspect in their learning. In Early Years, this is developed through two key schemes; Helicopter Stories and Poetry Basket. This encourages children to love reading through performance poetry and developing spoken narrative. This is further embedded in our school-wide annual Poetry Slam. In Key Stage One, children’s literature is woven into every area of their curriculum, as books are written about, used for hot seating games, outdoor activities, drama lessons and whole class story time. In Key Stage Two, children use their play script module to rehearse and perform plays, immersing themselves in the drama of the text. Further to this, Key Stage Two have LAMDA lessons, going forward for LAMDA examinations in key year groups.

Yearly Overviews

Please see the progression of reading levels through our Early Years and Key Stage One:

Reading Impact

Progress is monitored regularly. Examples of support given to help pupils achieve their best include phonics intervention; within class support, 1:1 reading with an adult. The effect of this is reflected in our Early Year, Key Stage One and Key Stage Two results – consistently above the national average.