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Teaching Reading:
At St James’ Lanehead, children are explicitly taught the skills of reading (outlined in the National Curriculum and the KS1 and KS2 test domains) using VIPERS, which were created by Rob Smith (The Literacy Shed).
VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.
Vocabulary Inference Prediction Explanation Retrieval Sequence or Summarise
Our aims for English is to ensure that by the end of Key Stage 2, all pupils:
· Read easily, fluently and with good understanding
· Develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
· Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
· Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
· Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
· Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
· Are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentation, demonstrating to others and participating in debate
The English curriculum is underpinned by two core values – that all children should be competent readers and that all children should be able to articulate their ideas. We believe that in order for our children to become successful writers, they must first be able to speak well and read with fluency and confidence.
Reading is an essential part of our whole curriculum. Children read extensively in all other curricular areas – from following instructions in DT, to reading religious texts during Religious Education. We believe that children should read frequently and widely.
Children actively and enthusiastically engage with books, labels and information on displays throughout school.
Books and iPads are used daily for research within other subjects. Children are encouraged to read for pleasure with each class having dedicated library time and there being an embedded system for borrowing and returning books. We ensure that all our pupils are benchmarked so that our staff are
fully aware of the children’s levels. Home reading books are phonetically decodable to facilitate independent reading especially for those children who are not read with at home. Within the school, we value reading, children are read to daily to promote a love of storytelling and all staff share their experiences of reading with the children.
Reading Apps
We are happy to introduce our brand new reading apps: Oxford Reading Owl and The Bug Club.
These are a great addition to our abundance of books and will provide a replacement for our reading books within school until we are able to send them home again. They are both fantastic apps that act as an online library for your child, allowing them to access a range of books that are specific to the level at which they are at.
Below is the information you will need to log in for EYFS, KS1 and KS2. You should have received these letters home as paper copies with your child’s reading level on too. If you wish to check your child’s reading level, please contact the school office.
To access Oxford Reading Owl:
Please log on and select which book you would like your child to read from the level that has been provided by school.
To access The Bug Club:
Please log on using the details you have been provided with and you will find a range of books ready to read, these are books that your child’s class teacher has selected for them.
After your child has finished reading you will be able to complete the reading record which is available on Purple Mash.
This will allow staff to monitor the home reading and provide feedback if needed.
The staff will be checking this on a weekly basis.
To find the reading journal on Purple Mash, please follow the steps below:
- Purple Mash
· Log in – Search ‘Reading Journal’ (Select the one appropriate for your child’s age)
· Record reading
· Save
Again we appreciate that not all children have access to devices which allow them to access apps online. If this is the case, please continue to read with them at home. Reading can take place in any form, reading books, when you are out and about or in the house e.g. reading street signs or following a recipe!
100 Books to Read
We strongly believe that all children should experience high quality books that enhance literacy skills and inspire them to read. We aim for children to develop a love of reading and this will help motivate them to write.
To help with this we are sharing a fabulous and highly recommended list of ‘100 Books to Read…’
Reading Spine
Reading Spine takes place daily in every classroom where the children are read to. Each of the books help to develop the imagination of our children and equips them with language. We want our school to be a place where children are read to, enjoy, discuss and work with high quality books. We use the Pie Corbett Reading Spine so that children have access to high quality texts and develop a love for reading!
Virtual Visit from Dan Worsley
This week we had a virtual visit from the author Dan Worsley. All the classes met Dan, listened to one of his amazing stories and then had the opportunity to ask him some questions.
Here are some responses from our families and children:
“We really enjoyed listening to Dan today. He used lots of expressions and kept us entertained.”
“Dan is a very engaging storyteller!”
He gave us excellent words of advice…”Keep reading and believe that anything is possible!”
“Thank you for making our week. The children absolutely love reading his books!”
“Thank you for what was such an enjoyable afternoon. Dan was marvellous to listen to and the children were so engaged all the way through!”
“We had such a good time, and this had been something that we had been looking forward to all week! Thank you to the school and to Dan for inspiring us to believe that we can do anything if we put our minds to it!”
“I thought Dan was really funny and he gave me lots of good ideas for my writing.”
‘I have never seen Dan before, I have just read a few pages of his book and I am hooked, I can’t wait to read the rest.”
World Book Day 2020
On World Book Day 2020, children were faced with crime scenes in each classroom! Somebody had been in and destroyed the classrooms, leaving evidence around. Our job was to find the pieces of evidence and work out who this could have been. More evidence arrived throughout the day, with reports from the neighbours, school office and a visit from the police! We gave all of our information to the police officers. For our Family Friday event, our families were inviting into school to look at the evidence and help us to work out who had caused the mess!
We also came dressed up as a word because as a school we have been focussing on vocabulary.
Here are some of our pictures from the day…
What did our children think?
