Reading
WASPS Reading Statement of Intent
At WASPS, we are passionate about reading. Not only do reading skills open the door to a magical and exciting world of literature, they are the key to independent learning and enabling access to our whole curriculum. The teaching of reading is therefore given top priority by all staff. Every child has the right to read so we teach the children the different skills and methods required for them to read in a fun, purposeful way, no matter what their ability, need or background. It is also important to remember that progress in literacy requires motivation and engagement, which will help children to develop persistence and lifelong enjoyment in their reading.
When children leave WASPS we aim for them to be competent readers. They should be confident when reading aloud before their peers, and able to read with fluency and expression. They should read across a range of genres and be able to utilise their reading skills to answer questions and explain their understanding. It is our hope that they will be able to use their reading to learn by heart, and to deliver poems and performances to an audience. Their reading should enable them to read appropriate texts for information and to develop their learning in all areas of the curriculum. Children will be able to talk about their reading, explaining book choices and their favourite authors. Children will enjoy reading for pleasure and engage in reading outside the classroom. They will have an ambitious vocabulary as a result of their reading and use appropriate language to talk about books, themes and characters.
Early Reading
At WASPS children are provided with positive early experiences of reading. Reading for pleasure is at the heart of our school, in order to foster a lifelong love of reading – reading at home every day is a really good way to complement this. Try these tips for how you can support your child when reading.
Read, Write Inc sound books, ditties and storybooks are at the centre of our core reading scheme. The books are carefully levelled to ensure a gentle introduction of new, exciting vocabulary and as the children progress at their own rate through the scheme they become successful, confident readers.
Our parents are invited to attend a reading session where we introduce the reading scheme and teach parents how to effectively segment and blend with an emphasis on ‘pure sounds’. Once our parents feel confident about the teaching of reading we then send home reading books and mini homework packs. The packs contains ‘red’ word lists for Reception and Year 1 that the children need to read and spell as well as a grapheme matt containing Set 1, 2 and 3 sounds in order for the children to confidently identify ‘pure’ letter sounds, and to discriminate between ‘bouncy‘ sounds and ‘stretchy‘ sounds.
We ensure that every child reads to an adult at school in order to develop a love of reading. During whole class teaching teachers and children will read aloud and review books. Even from a young age children are encouraged to join in with the repeated phrases throughout a text, in order to build on the language patterns of stories.
Reading VIPERS
VIPERS sessions should take place four times a week (for 30 minutes), following the structured timetable, so children are exposed to all of the key reading skills (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explain, Retrieval and Sequence/Summarising).
Each session needs to begin with a short RIE (Retrieval, Inference, Explain) exercise (no longer than 10 minutes) where the teacher models the skills needed and sentence stems to answer questions. The RIE exercise can be discrete from the text used during the VIPERS session and using a variation of genres is encouraged. This can include text, pictures, video, music or adverts.
VIPERS should be used to explore your text of the term so that children become engaged and passionate about the book that they are reading.
VIPERS in KS1
Reading VIPERS will start from the Spring term in Y1 and from the autumn term in Y2.
VIPERS in Lower KS2
VIPERS in Upper KS2
