Reading

Reading - The Rivington Way

Our shared reading curriculum is built around a carefully sequenced range of high-quality, age appropriate texts using Literacy Counts’ Ready Steady Read Together units of learning. This resource provides dynamic and inclusive lessons that incorporate metacognitive strategies and showcase diverse literature from a range of exceptional authors. It aims to inspire children and their families to develop a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, knowledge and information. We intend that all pupils from Year 2 to Year 6, regardless of need, ability or background, have the opportunity to meet and where possible exceed the National Curriculum expectations for reading comprehension. Ready Steady Read Together ensures that every pupil has access to high quality texts, enabling them to experience rich literature that develops fluency, vocabulary and deep understanding. Through explicit teacher modelling of expression, pace, intonation and prosody, children learn how skilled readers bring meaning to a text and how these features support comprehension. Shared reading also provides regular opportunities for discussion, questioning, drama and exploration of language. These approaches deepen comprehension while strengthening oracy skills. Crucially, our shared reading curriculum ensures that every child, regardless of their decoding ability, can access ambitious texts, engage meaningfully with literature and develop the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and learning.

Reading Enjoyment

We strive to generate a sense of fun, excitement and pleasure in reading to encourage our children to become lifelong readers.  Each class has a dedicated, stimulating reading area with books updated regularly. 

Many exciting and rewarding activities are arranged in school to promote the pleasure and knowledge that can be gained from books. Annual Book Weeks include visits by published authors, shared reading with older and younger pupils, making books, using drama, dance and music to illustrate texts.

Children learn poems to perform and present to the school during assemblies and to enjoy in class linked to the topics they are learning.

Year One and Year Five participate in BASH in conjunction with the Schools Library Service to review new fiction and to meet the authors.  Each summer we promote and celebrate the Summer Reading Challenge to encourage reading over the summer holidays.

Reading at Home

Children in the Nursery are encouraged to borrow books whilst Reception and KS1 children take home a book banded book from a reading scheme.  In addition to this children have the opportunity to choose a book from the class and school library.  Each child has a reading folder and a home school reading record that teachers and parents can use to share information about a child’s reading.  Parents are encouraged to read with their child daily. Information is given on how to support their child in reading at reading workshops in Nursery, Reception and Year One with advice leaflets and homework. 

In Key Stage 2 children choose books to take home and read from the class and school library once they have completed the book bands. We believe that this not only helps to develop inferential skills, but also supports a lifelong love of reading. Throughout the Key Stage children become more independent in recording what they have read in their reading journals.

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.

Reading Ambassadors

At Rivington Primary School we have children who are our Reading Ambassadors and they work with Mrs McKenny, Miss Heeley and Miss Hogg in developing reading for pleasure across the school. Together we have created a Reading Ambassador Challenge Tree which comprises of 8 books that we recommend other children should read. We also organise events during World Book Day and generally spread lots of enthusiasm about reading.