Our Reading Intent

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”

Malala Yousafzai

At Evercreech C of E Primary School, we foster a love of reading to ensure our children become fluent, confident readers. We promote reading for pleasure and endeavour to expose children to a wide variety of authors and genres to broaden their literary horizons and expand their vocabulary and imaginations. High-quality texts are carefully chosen for their links to curriculum learning opportunities, ensuring a representative balance of both classic and modern literature and gender representation (amongst both authors and characters). We also seek to expose children to worlds beyond their immediate experience, reflecting social, cultural, ecological and environmental diversity, to support their development as global citizens.  

Reading is taught in line with objectives set out in the Programmes of Study from the new English Curriculum 2014. Reading is a high priority both in and out of school and we value parental support to develop our children’s learning potential through regular home reading.   

Class Reads

Storytime is a core element of our timetable to ensure that this important time is protected and happens on a daily basis. Class teachers select an appropriate high-quality book to be read aloud to their class over the course of the half term. Books are selected to ensure there is breadth and variety of texts both across the year and between classes. Books are chosen to be ambitious for the children so as to expose them to language and themes that they may not yet be able to access in their independent reading. This is part of building the firm foundations for reading for pleasure. 

Opportunities to Read

All our children read daily and have access to a home reading book. For our younger children who are learning phonics, these are fully decodable books that are closely matched to their phonic attainment to develop their reading confidence and fluency. For children who are secure in their phonic knowledge, we have a range of books organised into stages, supported by well-chosen, high-quality texts in classrooms. Each child has a Reading Record book on which their reading is recorded while relevant comments, creating a useful dialogue between school and home. 

All children in EYFS and KS1 are heard read individually by the class teacher once a week and by the class LSA once a week. In KS2, all children are heard by an adult at least once a week. In addition to this, children identified as priority readers receive daily reading practice with an adult to support and accelerate their progress towards closing their gaps and achieving age-related expectations.

We invite parents to join in with our celebration of reading through Rock Up and Read events where the children welcome parents/carers into the classroom and enjoy a session of reading for pleasure with their (or a friend's!) familiar adult.

  

  

Please see our 'Reading Enrichment' page for more photos of this termly event.

Our Reading Culture

At Evercreech, all staff are committed to raising the profile of reading and building a reading culture in which enjoyment and enthusiasm for books is prioritised, promoted and practised. Our recent 'March Into Books' event, which coincided with World Book Day, was highly successful in providing a wealth of reading opportunities and enrichment throughout the whole month to engage the whole school community in bookish activities, including:

- author visits, both in-person and virtual

- World Book Day celebration events, including a PTFA-run event after school

- our Year 3/4 play based on the book 'The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse

- staff recording bedtime stories for children to enjoy at home

- a hugely popular book fair, which raised nearly £300 for us to spend on new books

- 'Reading for Wellbeing' information shared with parents in our weekly newsletters

- a 'March Into Books' bingo reading challenge

A celebratory Book Bulletin shared with families all we have experienced this month. 

   

As part of our reading culture, we have Reading Rewards and regular Reading Challenges. 

Reading Rewards

Regular reading is celebrated and rewarded through our 'Reading is a Treasure' certificates, which are handed out during our weekly Praise Collective Worship. Certificates begin to be issued once a child has achieved ten reads, and are awarded at regular intervals until the pinnacle of Amethyst is achieved which reflects 300+ reads!

 

         

Coming soon...Reading Rockstar certificates to celebrate the reading development of our learners...watch this space for our first recipients! 

Reading Challenges

As part of our commitment to raising the profile of reading and promoting a love of books, we set themed challenges at regular intervals to encourage enjoyment and variety in reading. 

Our current challenge for the Easter break: Eggs-treme Reading! We can't wait to see what adventurous and exciting reading opportunities our children find!

The Spring Term saw our 'March Into Books Bingo' reading challenge; congratulations to the three lucky winners! 

   

Please see the Reading Enrichment page for further photos and details of past challenges. 

 

Reading Progression of Skills and Knowledge