Reading
At Higham Ferrers Junior School we love to read!
it is our intent to make all of our pupils ‘readers’ through a balanced mix of approaches to reading, to ensure that they achieve the skills required, a positive attitude and a confidence and interest to develop a life-long love of literature. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where reading for pleasure is embedded and new vocabulary is explored and inspires learning across all contexts. Subject specific vocabulary is taught across the curriculum and embedded into lessons and the spoken word. We ensure that children have access to a high quality reading curriculum that is both challenging and enjoyable. A variety of high quality reading materials and opportunities are provided to ensure that children learn, practise and secure fluency and key reading skills, ensuring that they can successfully research areas of personal interest and develop a love of reading.
Through our reading lessons, we plan opportunities to encourage and inspire inquisitive and active readers, who question the text and forge statements and opinions. Through exposure of a wide range of books and genres, children will learn, practise and secure all key reading skills.
Through progression of skills across the year groups children will learn to read with fluency and be able to work out how to pronounce unfamiliar words with increasing automaticity and determine meaning. We support parents in taking reading into the home and deliver materials and information to enable them to do so.
The programme of study at Key Stage 2 consists of two dimensions:
Word reading
Comprehension both listening and reading.
Reading at Higham Ferrers Junior School is implemented through 4 main structures:
Whole Class Reading Lessons.
Fluency Lessons.
Accelerated Reader.
Home Reading.
Whole Class Reading Lessons: Whole class reading lessons are built around the teacher reading and modelling reading of high quality and challenging texts, which are dissected by the class through high-level questioning and discussion. It includes a range of activities (not all which have a written outcome) that enable pupils to develop their vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Whole class teaching and learning is based around 8 strands:
| Prediction | Summarising | Fact Retrieval |
| Questioning | Inference | Fluency |
| Clarifying | Activating Prior Knowledge |
These are modelled and practiced to ensure skills become embedded and fluent. This approach requires children to learn what the strategy is, how the strategy is used and why and when to use the strategy. Lessons consist of explicit instruction and extensive practice.
We use the gradual release of responsibility model:
An explicit description of the strategy and when and how it should be used.
Modelling of the strategy in action.
Collaborative use of the strategy in action.
Guided practice using the strategy with gradual release of responsibility
Independent use of the strategy.
This model ensures that key skill strategies have explicit teaching and practice, but children can move through them at a personalised and challenging pace.
We also follow the Accelerated Reader (AR) program, where children complete a quiz after they have read a book in their level range. This program allows the school to set half-termly individual targets for each child. Children work together as a class to try and all reach their targets - a great accolade! Each class also has their own rewards for gaining 100% on a quiz or reaching their AR target. Children also work to read as much as they can to have the great honour of becoming a “Word Millionaire” – it’s amazing how quickly some children can read 1,000,000 words