Reading

Here at Bentley High Street Primary, we understand the importance of reading and the impact that quality teaching of this can have on a child's future.

Our goal is that every child who is with us experiences a wide range of literature to help develop their curiosity and interest in the wonders on what reading has to offer. We want to develop a love for reading!

We ensure that the teaching of reading is done through texts that capture the children's imaginations and we will always help a child who requires additional support.

Our school has designed a reading curriuclum which builds progressively both in terms of content knowledge and in the complexity of texts. This build both horizontally and vertically. Our reading spine has carefully chosen texts to ensure variety and ambition.

Reading pedagogy is carefully defined so that we have a set approach to how children are taught comprehension both within reading and the wider curriculum. Research from the EEF is used to support this.

Within Key stage 2, children who are still identified as Early readers have access to read, write inc phonics. The school also identifies children for the Read Write Inc. Fresh Start catch-up and intervention programme this is for 9 to 13-year-olds still learning to read. It offers a simple but powerful solution to accelerate reading progress in just 25 minutes a day. It teaches students at their challenge point, so they learn to read accurately and fluently. They will also develop good comprehension, spelling and punctuation skills through targeted activities. 

To build upon phonics knowledge, the school also teachers spelling following the Read Write Inc. Spelling. This teaches spelling cumulatively and systematically with deliberate, focused practice. It build upon the teaching strategies and spelling activities from Read Write Inc. 

Library

At Bentley High Street, we are passionate about our school library and realise how fortunate we are to benefit from this facility. At the beginning of each academic year, children in KS2 are encouraged to apply for the role of a school librarian. These children are responsible for the day-to-day running of the library, such as its tidiness, signing books in and out, and even sending out late slips! 

All the books in our school library have been included in the Accelerated Reader scheme where possible, and also banded into different genres and text-types to help children find their ideal book.

In the library we promote different authors and celebrate children and teachers reading for pleasure through creative use of our displays. We also use the library to host a weekly reading-club where children share their thoughts and predictions on a shared text.

Story Magic

Every year we welcome Story Magic into our school who bring a wonderful energy and passion to KS1 and KS2 with their productions. Our pupils absolutely love the retelling of classic stories such as Pinocchio and Jack and the Beanstalk, and the performances always inspire children and highlight the importance of reading for pleasure. The productions are always able to entertain the children whilst carrying the message that reading has become the 'hero' of the story. We always look forward to the return of the Story Magic team!

Weekly Reading for Pleasure sessions

At this school we value the importance of reading for pleasure and how picking up a book or a story isn’t just linked to learning. In KS2, each class has a weekly session where they are able to visit the library, talk about their favourite stories, take book recommendations from teachers, or simply make use of the dedicated reading environments. From these sessions we hope children will aspire to explore more authors or genres of books, and work on crucial skills such as book talk, recommending books and making comparisons.

 

School Visits

To help promote a love of reading within school, we aim to bring inspiration and fresh ideas from others within the education community. This can be a real-life context, where members of the public with genuine experiences related to a topic children are engaged in, come into the classroom and share their stories in order to help children with their writing. We also encourage and enjoy local talent who visit classrooms and connect with children in an imaginative way that in turn inspires them with their own writing or their desire to read.

Reading Ambassadors

To help our school promote all the wonders that reading stories has to offer, we recruited Reading Ambassadors. From each year group, we selected two children from a host of volunteers for their creativity input. Together, it is our aim to spread our enthusiasm about reading to not only children in the school, but also the wider community. 

Daily Story-time

At the end of every school day each class settles down for story time. As part of our timetabling there is dedicated time accounted for the sharing of a story. In this time teachers are expected to pull their class together and share their class text. These core texts change every half-term and are mapped in to suit our bespoke curriculum in order to ensure children are engaged and getting the best from rich-storytelling

Accelerated Reader

If your child is in Key Stage 2 then they have been given an account on Accelerated Reader. This allows us to be able to make sure that your child has a reading book that is perfectly suited to their reading ability and offers the right amount of challenge. On a lot of books, there will be a quiz available which children will be encouraged to complete in school after reading a book. However they can also do this at home too! If they click on the link below, it will take them to a secure server which is specific to our school (and should look like the image below). They simply just need to then click 'I am a student', enter their log in details and click on Accelerated Reader. Your child will have had a demonstration on how to use this in the classroom, however if you need any help, please speak to your class teacher.

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