English

English Reading

The document above is a complete guide to how we approach reading at Muscliff. It is a very long document as it contains all the information about what we do in reading and why we do it. 

Over their time at Muscliff, children will benefit from many carefully selected Beautiful Texts. From ‘What I like about Me’ in Year 1 to ‘Treasure Island’ in Year 6, each book stands out for being special and each book is used as a vehicle to drive the wider curriculum. When children are in Autumn Year 2, their Beautiful Text would be ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley.’ Why this book and not something else? Well, we believe that this book is the BEST book for our children. Somebody Swallowed Stanley is rooted in RESPONSIBILITY. Living in a seaside town, our beach and the coast are important to the children of Muscliff and looking after our surroundings, particularly the wildlife in the sea, is meaningful to the children in Year 2. That’s why Year 2 have selected this text – it’s very relevant to us here in Bournemouth. And when Year 6 study Treasure Island, this text is rooted in CURIOSITY. Treasure Island is a ‘Beautiful Text’ as it is an excellent model of a quest story, crafted to keep children on the edge of their seats. Like all adventure stories, there is a certain format and there are key ingredients which Y6 replicate in their writing. As Y6 are our oldest children, they appreciate that in real life there may be barriers and conflict to achieving a target and sometimes it is just not enough to hope and dream – one has to prepared to dig deep and toil. This text is also a good way to tackle the theme of healthy and unhealthy relationships and to show our oldest learners an example of when all is not what it seems in a relationship when there is an imbalance of power.

All of our English units are bespoke and we are very proud of these units. At Muscliff, the 'Beautiful Text' is our vehicle for inspiring a love for the English language; our bespoke curriculum (that centres around a specifically chosen book) captivates and enthrals our curious Muscliff Mice.

They have to be as our Muscliff children deserve a Beautiful Curriculum!

English Writing

The Muscliff Reading Spine - the Beautiful Texts that we study

In the documents below, you will find all of the books we study in each year group and the rationale that justifies their place in our curriculum. Within these documents we have outlined the key English skills and objectives that will be taught through this unit, the composition pieces that will be written in school as well tasks that can be completed at home.

Within these documents, it will be made clear why we choose the books that we do. When schools have the freedom to choose their texts, it is our belief that a) we make use of that opportunity as a vehicle to promote our school's culture and b) we choose the best books that reflect the needs of the children.

Alongside our lead text, we have chosen further books that complement the unit - we call this our Reading Spine. This reading list is bespoke to us and each book has been chosen purposefully by our wonderful teachers.

How do we teach phonics?

We love Little Wandle! When researching which phonics scheme to follow in school, we found that Little Wandle was THE programme that stood out for us: the expectations set out by Little Wandle are high. And expectations should be high! We want all children to achieve well in phonics as a springboard to their future success as readers. LW supports families and teachers to help children read to a high standard and reach their potential in reading. Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised also draws on the latest research into how children learn best; how to ensure learning stays in children’s long term memory and how best to enable children to apply their learning to become highly competent readers.

Reception and Year 1 (and Year 2 upwards where appropriate) are fully resourced with the latest books from to support their phonics learning (both in school and at home) so that all children read the books that are appropriately matched to their phonic knowledge.

Little Wandle exceeds the expectations of the national curriculum and the early learning goals.

Did you know? We were one of the first local schools to adopt Little Wandle. Since then we have welcomed many adults from other schools to come and see what Little Wandle looks like in practise.  

The impact is that we have a high quality, government approved, phonics programme that sets high expectations.

Does phonics stop at Y1?

No! Phonics is THE most important skill so it is crucial that children are fully equipped to tackle words at any stage.

For those children that need extra support, phonics intervention is prioritised until each individual has successfully completed the Little Wandle programme of study. We follow intervention catch up programmes from Little Wandle (in Y2 until necessary) with rigour, tracking progress and next steps.

Phonics and Intervention

Older students struggling with reading may have gaps in their phonics knowledge and it is important to assess and establish what those gaps are. For example, although all of our Year 3 children have had comprehensive teaching of phonics in YR – Y2 following the Little Wandle programme, they may struggle to apply phonic knowledge when decoding new multi-syllable words. Showing them how to find the vowels and then the syllables may enable them to activate their existing phonic knowledge. 

We use ongoing-assessment effectively to identify where pupils are struggling in word reading, reading fluency or language comprehension and when pupils require additional targeted support. 

Where phonics is identified as the main barrier to progress (and using Year 2 phonics re-set test data), we continue to use the Little Wandle rapid catch-up programme. This would be delivered as a small group intervention although is more likely to be 1:1 depending on the specific needs of the learners.

Phonics continues into Key Stage 2...

Once completing the Little Wandle programme, for those children in KS2 who still have some gaps in their phonic knowledge that hinders their fluency, we use Project CODE X. This Oxford intervention programme dovetails our whole school book scheme so that children who find reading tricky can still experience the same Project X adventures as their peers. With CODE, each book contains two parts. The first part of the book is fully decodable and the second is 80% decodable. We find CODE X to be the best intervention programme for closing gaps well.

But we don't stop phonics there...

Good practice in KS2 classrooms all the way up to Y6 means that children continue to draw on their phonics knowledge and be challenged in their phonics knowledge. We continue to refer to 'sound buttons,' 'split digraphs' and 'trigraphs' even in Y6! When it comes to learning how to spell the trickiest of words on the Y6 spelling list that don't follow expected patterns, it's important to refer back to children's concrete knowledge in order to fully understand non-examples. 

The colour bands

Teachers will use their professional judgment to ensure that children are reading an appropriate level book at home. As a general rule, we tend to send home books that children can read at an accuracy of around 90%. This means that the reading experience at home is enjoyable but a little challenging. At school, children will be challenged that bit more, with the support of their teacher. They might well be reading a different colour with their teacher.

The colour bands are based on national expectations. If a child is working towards the national expectations then they may be choosing coloured books from the previous year, to build on prior learning and consolidate the core reading skills.

These books develop fluency and enjoyment of a variety of texts (e.g. stories, poetry, information) In addition to this, children have the opportunity to choose a book from the book corner. Each child has a home reading record that teachers and parents can use to share information about a child’s reading. Classrooms have a Reading Corner with a selection of books for the children to enjoy.

We still encourage all readers to share a book at home with their grown-ups. We believe that this not only helps to develop inferential skills, but also supports a lifelong love of reading. We actively encourage reading a whole range of different books and material and children are encouraged to read their own (or local library) books also.

We recognise the value of adults (both in school and at home) reading aloud to children, in order to improve their grasp of story language, enthuse them with a love of books and inspire them as writers.

Which reading schemes do we follow?

We love Oxford Reading Tree! We follow the Oxford Level colour-banded scheme and the books we use to support the teaching of reading are published by OUP. In particular, we enjoy Oxford's Project X books and the children enjoy reading about the adventures of Ant, Cat and Max from their beginnings in Year 1 all the way through to Year 6. In using a colour-banded scheme, we can ensure that children across the school are reading challenging, age-appropriate books and we know that Oxford's material is of a very high quality. 

How do we teach reading?

Children should be encouraged to develop a love of books and the disposition to read.’

We strive to teach all our children to read and to enjoy a variety of texts so that they will become independent, critical, life-long readers and learners. Teachers model reading strategies during shared reading sessions within lessons, whilst children have the opportunity to develop reading strategies and to discuss texts in detail during guided reading sessions. Independent reading provides time for both assessment and 1-1 teaching. Daily discreet phonics lessons in FS and KS1 enable children to decode efficiently. This is continued into KS2 where necessary.

The Oxford colour banded reading scheme is used to support all our readers but this is further enriched through texts that are carefully selected by the teachers in-line with our curriculum rooted in 'The Beautiful Text.' Guided Reading books are selected to provide appropriate challenge and to be instructional, and will generally be a higher book band than those books that pupils share at home (see Guided Reading Policy). Teaching assistants may support reading activities to ensure that children have more frequent opportunities to read with adults.

Shared Reading

The whole class shares a text, which is beyond their independent reading levels, often using an enlarged text (paper or ICT based). Shared reading provides a context for teacher modelling, teaching and applying reading skills (word, sentence and text level). Shared reading is interactive where the children are encouraged to engage in, question and reflect on what is being read.

Our teachers are really passionate about their reading material and this in turn ignites a reading spark in our Muscliff children.

Teaching Reading Fluency

Where children need to develop reading fluency, Guided Reading should take place in a small group, with a teacher or teaching assistant, and should focus on developing children’s ability to become independent readers, thinkers and learners.  When fluency is the objective of the session, the children are grouped by ability and read individual copies of the same text, which matches the reading level of the group.  Texts should be selected from the school’s guided reading scheme – Project X (Oxford Reading Tree). 

Reading at Home

All children have been provided with a year group specific reading record. The expectations of reading at home are the same throughout the whole school and the reading record reminds parents of this expectation: all children should read at least 4 x per week for a minimum of 15 minutes. Space has been provided for parents to communicate with the teacher about the reading session at home. The reading record also contains the key word lists. Parents also have access to the ‘Reading at Home’ document on our school webpage; this document provides parents with helpful information regarding age-related expectations, as well as helpful comprehension questions and activities.

To support online reading, we use Oxford Owl and Oxford Reading Buddy. Oxford Owl provides children with our whole school reading material at home! 

From Reception all the way through to Year 6, children take home a book according to their ability. These books follow the same banding as our guided reading scheme. The structure of the colour bands ensures that all of our children are taking home appropriately challenging books that will develop their skills as efficient and successful readers.

Parent readers in school

Reading Rangers is a small group of parent volunteers who come into school, joining teachers during the guided reading session, to assist with 1:1 reading. There is a separate Reading Rangers policy. All Reading Rangers have met with a member of SLT to discuss their role within school. All Reading Rangers have read (and signed to confirm this) both the Reading Ranger policy as well as the Safe Guarding policy.