Reading
At Bamford Primary we aim to create life-long learners who have a passion for reading for the rest of their lives. Reading for pleasure is a key aspect of the curriculum and the basis for teaching children to read. Time is set aside for whole class storytelling. We also welcome families and carers into school every morning for ‘Early Bird Reading’ to share books with their children in Class Oak. We offer Reading Workshops throughout the year, providing opportunities for parents and carers to learn alongside their children.
We recognise the importance of teaching a systematic synthetic phonics programme to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. Our approach provides a detailed, systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children starting in Reception, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven. We base our phonics teaching around the Read Write Inc scheme of work and supplement this teaching approach during our day-to-day teaching.
Phonic progress is assessed and tracked by the class teachers at least every half term and used to group children into appropriate learning groups.
To support learning, we encourage daily reading using books which use the National Book Banding system (KS1). Children are engaged in their own personalised reading world through a wide variety of resources and rewards that keep them motivated. Once children are confident readers, they take part in daily reading sessions. During these sessions, children have the opportunity to read with the teacher and then to complete activities to develop their understanding of texts.
Children in Reception and Year 1 foster a love of reading by spending time with their reading buddy from Key Stage 2, during this time the children enjoy having a book read to them by their buddy, then when their reading progresses they will read books to their buddy.
Reading Record books are used by the class teacher and parents/carers to track children's reading journey. All home and school reading should be recorded in the book. Teachers will reward progress and effort with positive rewards. We view regular home reading as very important and work with our parents to ensure a wide variety of reading can be enjoyed. We include reading as part of our homework provision for all children.
Once children become more proficient and independent with their reading, they progress to using the Accelerated Reader programme, primarily from KS2 onwards. This allows the children to continue to access challenging and interesting texts that are both age and stage appropriate. They are able to undertake 'quizzes' on line which helps teachers to monitor and assess learning so that support can be targeted in a timely and effective way. Children enjoy this programme and are able to read 'real books', including books from home.
For those children who find reading more problematic, help is at hand. The teachers and TAs have been trained to identify struggling readers and provided Early Help and targeted reading interventions which meet the needs of the individual children. We work closely with parents and offer a range of interventions which include (but are not limited to):
