Hillside Primary School
Reading
Reading is a key tool for life. Teaching children to become confident and fluent readers, by developing a love and passion for reading is a large and exciting part of what we do. Our children are exposed to a wide range of genres and high-quality texts that engage the reader, develop a breadth of vocabulary and support ideas for writing. We use the reading VIPERS to support the reading comprehension approach so that children have the key skills to appreciate and understand literacy texts.
We have carefully selected texts that expose children to the genres identified in the national curriculum, these include texts that are linked to
- the themes we study in class,
- classic books,
- books that represent our multicultural society,
- strong role models,
- people who have made a difference to our lives
- books that we read to inform our learning
- books that we enjoy reading.
How to we teach children to read
The children are introduced to early reading through the Little Wandle phonic scheme. Please see the phonics section of the website for more information.
Once our children have graduated from the Little Wandle phonics programme they continue to read books from the Big Cat Collins read scheme. As they become more confident, fluent readers they will be moved on to the Accelerated Reading Scheme.
Accelerated Reader
We aspire to create a culture and love for reading and Accelerated Reader is a fantastic software programme to support pupils to become independent readers. We use it to motivate, monitor and manage our pupil’s independent reading practice primarily from Year 3 upward or earlier if children are ready.
The benefits of reading for pleasure and independence
- Children who say they enjoy reading for pleasure are more likely to score well on reading assessments compared to pupils who said they enjoyed reading less
- It can have a positive impact on pupils’ emotional and social behaviour
- It can have a positive impact on text comprehension and grammar
- It creates a culture of reading and enjoyment of reading.
The programme is designed to work out a reading level (or STAR reading level) for pupils at the start (by means of a STAR test). Pupils then read books within this level – all books in the library that are registered with AR have a coloured star label on the spine to help them recognise books within their ‘zone’.
Pupils then read the book of their choice that has matched their interests. They can read books in class and at home. Following reading the book or text pupils take a quiz on the website after reading each book to assess how well they understood it.
Both the pupil and teacher receive feedback on the quiz results. Their STAR level is tested frequently to check how well they have progressed.
As well as being about promoting reading and academic achievement, AR is also about the enjoyment of reading and creating a real culture of reading.
