Reading at Tymberwood.

The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, the more places you will go.

                                                                                      Dr Seuss    

Tymberwood recognises the important of teaching children to successfully decode words when reading while building a love for reading. We place a great deal of focus on reading both as an enjoyable pastime and as a vital part of a child’s learning journey. We recognise how much reading helps a child in every aspect of their education.

Our aims for reading are to:

• Instil children with a love of reading that lasts for their lifetime, share with them an enthusiasm for children’s literature and help children to recognise the value of reading as a life skill.
• Encourage children to become enthusiastic and reflective readers by introducing them to good quality books, from a variety of cultures and in a range of different styles and formats.
• Develop our children’s understanding of a variety of text types including non-fiction, fiction, poetry and drama.
• Develop children’s confidence, fluency, and independence when reading for different purposes.
• Develop children’s abilities to reflect on and have an interest in what they have read and the language and punctuation choices made by the author.
• Use drama and role-play, where appropriate, to immerse children in the text.
• Must make reading fun.
• Ensure our children have sound phonic awareness and use a phonics first approach to reading.

• We must ensure there is dedicated time for reading and that it is clear across the whole school that reading is a high priority for all of us.
• Model real life reading behaviours, especially those that are relevant to our own lives.
• Build relationships with children through great books.

The Teaching of Reading.

In Key Stage One a typical week is split into two. Some sessions focus on improving comprehension and understanding of text. The children all have a copy of the same text to read and they participate in discussions, activities and questioning to practise the reading skills that are taken from the reading domains and National Curriculum. In other sessions the children have texts matched to their phonics ability and spend time practising fluency, expression and understanding skills while reading independently, to peers, in small groups and to adults.

In Key Stage Two there is a whole class approach to the teaching of Reading. Longer texts of a range of genres are studied. Reading skills, taken from the reading domains and National Curriculum are modelled and taught explicitly. The children are then given the opportunity to practise, develop and embed these skills through a range of different activities.

Reading for Pleasure.

Children take home a high quality reading book each day. They are encouraged to read aloud to an adult each night to reinforce their word recognition, improve their confidence and share their love of reading with siblings and parents at home. Children have the opportunities to read aloud at school and share books in different contexts.

Children have the opportunity to visit our school library and reading hubs each week. The children are encouraged to choose and read books which they enjoy to encourage their love of reading to flourish.

In every classroom, at the end of the day, the children are read to by an adult. These are high quality texts, linked to the Learning Themes.

Tymberwood Reading Challenge

We encourage all children to read at home each night. To promote reading for pleasure we ask that children total how many minutes they read on a Tuesday night and record on a bookmark. Prizes are awarded each term to the classes with the most children who have read at home.

Phonics

Our principle aim is to develop the pupils’ phonological awareness, ability to segment and blend words and read tricky words on sight- to become fluent readers! Our teaching at all levels should include:

•Teacher exposition

•Whole class, group and individual work

•Tricky word vocabulary

Every phonics lesson in Tymberwood (phase 1-5) begins with alphabet song. All teachers teaching phase 2-5 use sound buttons to help children spell and blend words. Tymberwood has also their own agreed phoneme actions to help children remember each sound.

We aim to encourage all pupils to reach their full potential through the provision of varied opportunities to access phonics. We recognise that our phonics planning must allow pupils to gain a progressively deeper understanding of the phonetic structure of the English language as they move through the school to ensure all pupils are provided with the key tools needed to become a fluent reader.