[heading]Reading[/heading]
Dear Parents,
This newsletter is designed to give you information on how we teach reading at Cathedral School and how parents can support their children at home.
Reading with your child at home
Reading with an adult at home is one of the most important aspects of a child’s reading diet and has a huge impact on their enjoyment of reading and the progress they make in all aspects of the curriculum. It is important that children read very regularly at home. Short sessions of about 10-15 minutes on a daily basis have the greatest impact and we recommend a minimum of 3 days a week. Older children should be encouraged to continue reading on their own; what they have read can be discussed the next day. Reading with your child does not always have to involve them reading aloud. They will also enjoy and benefit from listening to and discussing more complex texts and stories that you have read to them. Some children like to take turns to read chapters in more challenging ‘free reader’ books with an adult.
There are a number of ways you can have a positive impact on your child’s progress while reading at home.
- Support them with the reading of individual words that are new or tricky
- Ask your child: What do you like about the book? What don’t you like? What questions do you have?
- Discuss the meaning of individual words or phrases you think they might be unsure of. Check them in a dictionary and work together to use new vocabulary in a sentence
- Discuss aspects of the story such as the character’s personality and why they make certain choices or act in certain ways
- Make predictions about what will happen next
- Describe the setting together in your own words
- Thinking about the beginning, middle and end of the story. What happened at each point? Can they think of an alternative ending?
- Compare the book to others. Do they know any more by the same author? With the same themes?
- Summarise the key points from the text
Do ensure you write in your child’s reading record when you read as this is a great way of communicating the progress your child is making at home with their teachers and members of support staff.
For recommendations on books to choose at home please refer to your child’s Book Bingo cards and also our recommended reading lists on your child’s Class Blog page.
Reading at School
At school, your child will develop a range of reading skills throughout the curriculum and during whole class sessions, one to one reading and reading independently. Staff and volunteers will regularly record information about your child's reading at school in their blue reading record. This will be in the form of a comment or a sticker.
Please see information below detailing the ways in which we teach your children to read at school:
| Whole class teaching | All Children | Whole class teaching happens throughout the day. Children are exposed to a wide range of texts in English and across all areas of the curriculum, both fiction and non-fiction. They use their reading skills to find and interpret information across a wide range of subjects.
Children also have at least 4 dedicated whole class reading sessions a week. Specific reading objectives are targeted through exercises such as ‘Text Talk’, ‘Reading Circles’, Independent Reading, reading a class text and developing comprehension skills. These objectives are varied and differentiated, depending on the needs of the individual children. |
| Reading with a teacher | All Children | All children can expect to have a one to one reading session regularly with a teacher. During independent reading sessions the teacher will target specific children, with the aim of focusing on a specific objective as well as discussing the text and supporting the child’s enthusiasm and engagement in a wide range of texts in order to support the development of positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read. |
| Reading with a member of support staff | All Children | All children will have the opportunity to read with a teaching assistant regularly. Some children will, based on specific needs, be daily or weekly readers with a teaching assistant. Teaching assistants will focus on specific objectives as well as discussing the text and supporting the child’s enthusiasm and engagement in a wide range of texts in order to support the development of positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read. |
| Reading with a volunteer | Some Children | Some children will, based on individual need, be daily or weekly readers with a trained volunteer. Volunteers will focus on specific objective as well as discussing the text and supporting the child’s enthusiasm and engagement in a wide range of texts in order to support the development of positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read. |
| Reading with a buddy | Some Children | Some children will, based on individual need, be daily or weekly readers with a buddy. The buddy’s focus with be discussing the text and supporting the child’s and engagement in a wide range of texts in order to support the development of positive attitudes to reading and understanding of what they read. Buddy readers are children from Year 6. |
Provision
| In class reading provision | Every classroom has a dedicated quiet reading corner in which children have access to a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts. If a specific text is not available they are able to request it. Children are also given access to a wide range of texts throughout the curriculum including on line texts. |
| Reading Scheme | At Cathedral School we use the Oxford Reading Tree Reading Scheme. The scheme has many benefits including offering a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts that are stepped in a way that supports children to make sustained progress. Each individual book has a guide for parents to help support the reading of that particular text. Children should be encouraged to read a wide range of texts in addition to the reading scheme.
Children will move away from the reading scheme when staff judge that their progress, ability, level of independent reading at home and ability to choose appropriate texts demonstrates that they are ready to become a Free Reader. This will usually happen from Year 4 upwards. |
| Book Bingo | Children across the school are given a ‘Book Bingo’ card. The cards suggest a range of books for the child to read independently. The purpose of book bingo is to encourage children to read and enjoy a wide range of different authors and texts; this will support them develop new interests and find new favourite authors. In Year 5 and 6 these cards are personalised and children are given the opportunity to recommend books to each other. |
I hope that you have found this newsletter useful.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about reading.
Best wishes
Mrs Rees
Deputy Headteacher
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If you need to change the arrangements for collecting your child at the end of the school day please inform the office before 2pm unless it is an emergency.
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Just a reminder that summer dresses are worn with white ankle socks. Tights are part of the winter uniform and they cannot be worn with summer dresses.
After October half term, all children must wear winter uniform (which can be worn all year round.)
For more information about uniform, see the Uniform Policy:
http://www.cathedralprimaryschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Uniform-Policy.pdf
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