Reading

 

The Power of Reading

At Earlsfield we follow The Power of Reading by The CLPE (The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education)  Literacy is taught through high quality books and creative teaching approaches such as art and drama. It aims to engage and motivate children in their literacy learning and also enables children to deepen their understanding of texts and provides a meaningful context for writing. How are the texts used?

Quality texts are used as the basis for learning over several weeks. Children explore and discuss the text through creative activities. They also write in a range of genres as part of the unit. For example they might write a letter in role as a character or write a newspaper recount about the events in the text. 

Reading aloud is a key part of the Power of Reading. The strategy enables all children to access quality texts. Reading aloud also enables the teacher to model expressive and fluent reading to the children. Children then echo what they have heard read aloud in their own writing.The Power of Reading also helps to develop inference and deduction and comprehension skills. 

Some of the quality texts we use as a basis for literacy learning:

 

Year Group	Books	Author
Year 1	The Naughty Bus We’re Going on a Bear Hunt Beegu Cinderella Traction Man Town Mouse, Country Mouse	Jan Oke Michael Rosen Alexis Deacon      Aesop's Fables.
Year  2	Lila and the Secret Rain The Great Fire of London The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzl The Magic Finger Where the Wild Things Are	David Conway   David and Ronda Armitage   Roald Dahl Maurice Sendak
Year 3	Into the Forest The Frog Prince Continued Charlotte’s Web The Village that Vanished Firebird Krindlekrax	Antony Browne Jon Scieszka EB White Ann Grifalconi Saviour  Pirotta Phillip Ridley
Year 4	The Mousehole Cat The Tinderbox The Iron Man The Great Kapok Tree Varjak Paw	Antoni Barber Hans Christian Anderson Ted Hughes Lynne Cherry S F Said
Year 5	The Adventures of Odysseus Street Child Beowulf The Highwayman	Lupton, Morden and Balit Berlie Doherty Kevin Crossley-Holland Alfred Noyes
Year 6	Kensuke’s Kingdom Way Home Letters from the Lighthouse The Sleeper and the Spindle Macbeth	Michael Morpurgo Libby Hathorn/Gregory Rogers Carroll, Blanch and McEwan Neil Gamain Shakespeare

 

If you walked into a guide reading session you would see

 

• Group discussions
• High level questioning using VIPERS questions
• Opportunities for learners to consolidate skills through recording answers
• Good choices of challenging books that are suitable for the group​
• ​Reference to the bands so the children know what they were working towards and what they mean
• Clear modelling and heads up on what the children need to work on when reading aloud
• Very strong focus on vocabulary-meanings of words, context, synonyms and antonyms. 
• Active learning- using sugar paper/whiteboards to record answers. 
• Text marking and close reading of chunks of texts
• Active reading-listening out for key information and vocabulary
• Questioning-lots of different question types with reference to the different skills and types of questions- retrieval, inference, prediction, summarising, vocabulary, explanation.
• Digging deeper for answers
• Encouragement of decoding for those children that need it
• Non Fiction texts-recapping on features, reinforcing knowledge
• Discussions on word choices and content/story lines/characters
• Children all enjoying the chosen texts.
• Green comprehension books but not over used.  Still lots of time given over to discussion and verbal questioning.
• Children using the text to back up their answers

 

What do pupils tell us about reading?

What do you love about reading at Earlsfield?

Year  4 Pupil:  I love how there is a library with a good selection of books. I like non-fiction books too

Year 4 Pupil: I like that there are lots of books. I like the outdoor library because I can read whatever I want and sit on beanbags (Tyler Y4)

Year 6 Pupil: I like the power of reading books because we delve into them in more detail and use them in our big writes.

How are you challenged during guided reading lessons?

Year 4 Pupil:  We are challenged by reading because the vocabulary can be tricky

Year 6 Pupil: We use different styles of books and genres which are challenging as they are not styles we are used to.

Year 6 Pupil: The books we are using are challenging-the vocabulary is new and we are exposed to different sentence types.

Year 6 Pupil: Everyone is challenged through the questions because we have to use our inference skills. It gets our brains working. (Andre, Rayaan, Kavinran and Nadia Y6)

 

How is Reading for Pleasure promoted at Earlsfield?

Year 4 Pupil: There are the outdoor and indoor libraries. We can read for pleasure when we have finished our work. I like this because I get to learn lots of facts.

Year 4 Pupil: I feel joyful when my teacher says we can read for pleasure

Year 6 Pupil: We have a massive library so there is loads of choice

Year 6 Pupil: I like the Reading for Pleasure journals because I can express myself however I want

Year 6 Pupil: We have reading journals and indoor and outdoor libraries. We are have a wide variety of books to choose from

 Suggested additional texts for children at home 

 The images below show books that you may wish to give your children at home. Follow this link to find out more about each text. 

 

 

 Promoting equality through reading (and school reading list)

 

What is the Reading Treasure Chest?  

The Reading Treasure Chest is a box of carefully selected books which the teachers read to the students weekly. There is a wide range of topics, genres and authors and it is an initiative which promotes the love of reading. Facilitating reading for pleasure is so important for children as it opens their mind to new possibilities, sparks their imagination and will hopefully encourage them to read new books from authors they may not have usually chosen. 

This is our reading range - the books that every child in our school will hear read aloud from cover to cover. The Reading Treasure Chest books are in each year group and the teachers have a wide variety of quality literature to choose from. Our reading for pleasure sessions are timetabled twice a week and can be linked to PSHE and P4C sessions too.

This selection of books is regularly updated by the generous donations from our parents and carers at Earlsfield Primary School. They purchase books from our wishlist on A New Chapter which is a children’s bookshop specialising in diversity and inclusion. https://www.anewchapterbooks.com/shop?Wishlists=Earlsfield+Primary 

The selection below gives you insight into the amazing collection of literature that the children at Earlsfield Primary School are exposed to on a weekly basis.

Click on the title for  more information about each book.

 

 

 

Reading to the children during a designated time exposes students to an array of literature with mature themes. The books we have carefully chosen allow students to see themselves in books that they may not have normally read. Having designated class time twice a week allows teachers to have discussions around books that can also be used after an incident or if a current affair is raised. These books also link with the P4C sessions that are already embedded within our curriculum.

 

Intent: The pupils are exposed to a diverse range of literature. 

Implementation: Teachers consistently read to their classes.

Impact: Students can learn a variety of themes to enhance their cultural capital, their understanding of the world and to promote a love of reading.

 

On display: 

Our chosen book for the week is on display in our classrooms for children and visitors to be able to see. Students are very articulate in explaining to guests what book they are currently reading or previous books they have read. Next time you are in school, see if you can spot what book is on display that the class is reading this week! 

Nursery to year 6: 

This initiative is available to all students in Earlsfield, from Nursery to year 6. Nursery loved listening to Meesha Makes Friends by Tom Percival. They then created their own friends using recycled materials. The books in the Reading Treasure Chest are age specific, allowing all children to access the vocabulary, themes and genres that are presented within the wide variety of texts on offer. 

Pupil voice: 

This project was launched in Autumn 2022. Since the students have been reading the books from The Reading Treasure Chest they are able to confidently articulate what books they have been reading, the themes present in the books and how they are similar and different to the class texts in English lessons. 

These are some recent quotes from pupils at Earlsfield Primary School during a pupil voice session in Autumn 2: 

• We read a book about a character with flowers in their hair. When my grandma was upset I said to her she has lost her flowers- like the characters in the book
• The books in the Treasure Chest are based on serious topics. 
• The Treasure Chest shows books about kindness.
• Reading the books we do from The Treasure Chest shows equality. I think learning about this is important because everyone should be treated fairly.
• I enjoy it because he is pushing me to be a better person- be the best version of myself.