Reading

Welcome to our Linden Reading page! On this page you will find information about what your child will be learning in this subject, photographs of work that has taken place and links to relevant websites. We hope that you find this page useful.

What is Reading? What is a Reader?

Reading is a fundamental skill which underpins the Primary Curriculum and is essential in order for children to access the breadth of the curriculum. It allows children to communicate in meaningful ways, feeds their imagination and opens up a new world. Every child should be able to read for pleasure at a high standard which is why reading is given such a heavy weighting within our weekly timetable. We believe our reading curriculum gives children the tools they need to become independent, life-long learners which in turn allows them to develop new interests and to grow to become curious and reflective young people.

How many words kids would have heard by the time they were 5 years old: Never read to, 4,662 words; 1–2 times per week, 63,570 words; 3–5 times per week, 169,520 words; daily, 296,660 words; and five books a day, 1,483,300 words.
Jessica AR Logan, Laura M Justice, Melike Yumuş, Leydi Johana Chaparro-Moreno, 2019

‘Reading practices can play an important role in reducing the gap between the reading proficiency scores of students from different socio-economic backgrounds. But children cannot be ‘highly engaged’ if reading words is a struggle. It is vital, therefore, that phonics is a priority in teaching reading.’

OECD, 2002

‘Extensive experience in early literacy indicates that, if children are taught well, their backgrounds, ethnicity, level of disadvantage, their disabilities and other variables, such as being a boy or summer born, should rarely prevent their learning to read.’
Shanahan and Lonigan, 2010

‘It is essential that, by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education.’
Department for Education, 2013

‘The benefits of reading continue as children get older, with the combined effect on children's progress at 16 of regularly reading books and newspapers and visiting the library is four times greater than the advantage children gained from having a parent with a degree.’
OECD, 2021

We cover the full National Curriculum for Reading and use National Curriculum statements to ensure we cover a broad and balanced curriculum, but essentially, the programme of study for both KS1 and 2 are constructed as follows:

Word Reading
Comprehension (both listening and reading)

At Linden, we teach children to be Readers by:

Ensuring they understand that the letters on the page represent sounds in spoken words.
Teaching them to speedily work out the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar
printed words (sight words). This is achieved through a systematic phonics programme.
Teaching them to become good comprehenders: by giving them opportunities to draw on their linguistic knowledge and knowledge
of the world; by experiencing high quality discussions with adults and by reading a wide range of text types.
Encouraging children to read widely, both in and out of school, in order to develop an appreciation and love for reading.

At Linden, children are Readers because they are confident decoders.

Across the school, this is achieved through:

Using our Little Wandle phonics teaching approach of segmenting and blending spoken words into phonemes and representing these by graphemes. This systematic and synthetic approach to early reading ensures children learn first to orally blend and then progress to developing GPC (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence) by blending the sounds they encounter within a word. This new knowledge is applied to reading phrases and sentences and further supported by practising skills of segmenting (spelling).
Identifying early, children who need extra support in decoding and putting interventions in place for example The Little Wandle Keep Up/Catch Up Programme, Reading Recovery or Better-Read Partnership.
Providing opportunities to learn and practice reading tricky words; high frequency words and common exception words.
Providing children in EYFS and KS1 fully decodable books from Big Cats (Little Wandle) to read in school with an adult (3 times a week as a minimum). This also applies to KS2 children that are working below ARE (Age Related Expectations) in reading and they will read 7+ fully decodable books from Big Cats (Little Wandle).
Children that have completed the Little Wandle Programme will move onto colour banded books (purple to black).
Whole class Shared Reading sessions where children are encouraged to sound out words they are unsure of and read words by sight if undecodable.
Ability-based Guided Reading sessions where children are monitored in their decoding skills and supported to apply their phonics learning.
Running various workshops for parents over the year to allow them to confidently support their child’s journey in learning to read and to develop their comprehension skills by talking to their child about what they are reading

At Linden, children are Readers because they are good comprehenders.

Across the school, this is achieved through:

Providing children with a wide range of carefully chosen reading materials. Children have access to the Little Wandle decodable home reading books and library books in EYFS/KS1. In KS2, children have access to a range of colour banded books from various publishers such as Rising Stars, Bug Club and Big Cats; have access to school library books, topic related books, Guided Reading books and a range of Shared Reading texts selected by teachers.
Challenging Shared Reading sessions on a weekly basis. Children are exposed to new reading skills that are modelled clearly by the teacher in order for them to practice and apply them.
Teacher-led Guided Reading sessions (3x a week in EYFS/KS1 and once a week in KS2) that provide children with opportunities to learn new reading skills and practice existing skills, to answer a wide range of comprehension questions based on their ability and further develop their reading skills independently when not working in a group with their teacher.
Introducing the teaching of comprehension skills from EYFS, alongside the decoding, to show its importance.
Ensuring children have high expectations of reading across the curriculum, and not just in reading lessons
Encouraging children to apply their wide range of reading strategies across the curriculum.

At Linden, children are Readers because they are passionate about books.

Across the school, this is achieved through:

Teachers nurturing a love of books by selecting texts carefully and sharing their passion for reading.
Teachers introducing new books with enjoyment and excitement in order to promote a sense of wonder.
Allocating slots for each year group to visit the school library on a weekly basis.
Making curriculum topic links through the use of Cornerstones book lists.
Teachers making use of book lists/reading spines suggested by the reading lead.
Teachers using rich and varied language choices in their teaching across the whole curriculum.
Celebrating yearly events such as Author Week, World Book Day, National Poetry Day and the Summer Reading Challenge with Leicester Libraries.
Inviting guest readers to share books with children. This includes parents and librarians as well as published authors.

How is my child taught to read?

Reading is taught in 3 ways: Phonics, Shared Reading and Guided Reading.

Phonics Sessions

Children in EYFS and Key Stage 1 will work through the Little Wandle phonics programme until they become fluent and confident readers. They will take home a Big Cats Little Wandle reading book on a weekly basis. These books begin with wordless books and end on Phase 5 Set 5 at which point children move onto purple colour-banded books. This will typically happen during the Autumn term of Year 2. However, children that are not confident with phonics will continue on the programme until necessary. This includes Key Stage 2 children.

You can read more about Little Wandle on the phonics page of the website.

Shared Reading Sessions

Children from EYFS to Year 6 have one shared reading session a week. The purpose of this whole-class reading session is for them to see their teachers model and apply specific reading skills to a variety of different texts. They then have the opportunity to practice and apply these skills with support.

Guided Reading/Reading Practice Sessions

Following on from the whole-class shared reading session, the children will work in small groups to read appropriately leveled books with their teacher.

In Key Stage 2, guided reading sessions take place once a week. This time allows the children to practice the skills they been learning that week. It also allows teachers to support children in any other areas of reading that they may be struggling with.

In EYFS/Key Stage 1, reading practice sessions take place three times a week. The sessions focus on: decoding, prosody and comprehension.

Reading for Pleasure

As well as the timetabled reading sessions mentioned above, teachers will also promote a love for reading through story time which takes place at various times during the school day across all year groups.

What books will my child bring home?

Children will bring home two types of books.

One book will be from the class library. This will be something your child has chosen or may have had recommended to them by an adult. They may not necessarily be able to read this book on their own. Children benefit hugely from story telling through pictures and listening to a grown-up read to them so please do take the time to share your child's library book with them.

The second book they bring home will be their class reading book which has been allocated specifically based on their reading level. Children working within the Little Wandle Programme will bring home a book that matches their phonics level and these books will be fully decodable. This book will also have been read at least three times in school before it is sent home so that children can build up their fluency and expression. Children that have completed Little Wandle and/or are in Key Stage 2, will bring home a colour-banded book from purple to black.

What reading skills will my child be taught?

Below you will find links to each year group's long-term reading planning. These documents will outline the specific reading skills that will be taught over the year.

World Book Day 2023

The children all had a super day dressing up as their favourite book characters and they spent the day in different classes undertaking lots of exciting book related activities. Take a look at the photographs below which show just a small snippet of what the children got up to!

We are also very excited to share with you, that as a school, we read for a massive 22,133 minutes which have gone towards the Leicester City Readathon challenge of 500,000 minutes. Please come back soon to see if we, as a city, hit that half a million goal!