At Westroyd, we believe reading is a fundamental skill to support children as lifelong learners. Our aim is to develop a love of reading which will see children beyond their primary years. We want children to be fluent, confident and successful readers through consistent teaching strategies. Our priority is to teach every child to read as quickly as possible and be enthused about reading. We strive to teach children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension as well as develop the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and information. We recognise that exposure to a rich and varied reading diet enables pupils to acquire new knowledge and deeper understanding, as well as enable them to build a wide vocabulary and to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. These essential skills not only unlock doors to the rest of the curriculum but also have a huge impact on children’s self-esteem and future life experiences. 

We believe it is important for all children to be able to access a range of age appropriate texts. Our reading journey begins in the early years and continues throughout school. Initially this is listening to key texts and responding to questions using teachers read aloud, think aloud approach. Over time these skills build until children reach year 2. To support this love of reading and resilience when reading, we have developed whole class reading lessons across Year 2 and Key Stage 2. These lessons focus on developing reading skills in line with the National Curriculum content domains. Whole Class Reading lessons support children’s love of reading through a breadth of texts and genres. Books are carefully chosen to ensure high engagement and progression through school. Our lessons focus on key reading skills such as:

• Predict and Ask Questions - the children ask questions about what they have read and make predictions about what they will read next.
• Background Knowledge – using prior knowledge from own experiences or other books to further understand a text.
• Inference – build up, over time, a series of clues based upon what is being read in the text to aid understanding
• Visualisation – a period of reflection which allows the children to put themselves into the text and empathise with characters in order to get a better understanding.
• VIP words – identify and define key vocabulary
• Meaning Breakdown – Check what they have read makes sense and use strategies to ‘fix’ anything they have read.
• Summarise – find key parts of a text and give an overview. This may be a passage, chapter or overview.