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| The Reader Teacher - Top 100 Recommended Reads for Year 6 |
Reading at Home
Our approach to home reading
We want our pupils to read with as much fluency and understanding as possible and our books include comprehension support for reading at home and discussing books with your child/children. We want pupils to read a structured and progressive range of texts that will enable them to build on previous phonics/word knowledge and expand vocabulary at an appropriate age and ability related stage from Reception to Year 6. By reading books that are matched to key objectives, we can develop confident, expert readers throughout our school in partnership with parents.
How does it work?
Each week pupils will be given a reading scheme book to read. They will read them at home - with you, and in school with us on a 1:1 basis during the school week. New books will be distributed to the children each Monday and read in school and at home over the following 4 days. It is important therefore that they remain in the pupil's book bags and are brought back in to school each day. Your child's book must be returned on Friday, ready for a new book to be allocated for the following week on Monday.
Over the weekend, the children will be able to bring home their choice of books from a teacher-directed selection to explore and share on Saturday and Sunday. They are returned on Monday morning and exchanged for their new reading scheme book for that week.
Older pupils/our more avid readers will be able to choose 'reading for pleasure' books from the school library or class book shelf to read alongside their reading scheme book as the need arises. Their home-reading will be much more comprehension based.
Why one book?
We are focusing on the teaching and development of deeper reading. Deeper reading occurs when pupils are accurate and efficient at word reading (are no-longer pausing to de-code words frequently in texts that are age and stage appropriate) and have the cognitive capacity therefore to concentrate on comprehension. Children who are struggling to decode individual words tend to pause too frequently and for too long, so that their timing and phrasing are seriously disrupted. Furthermore, they must put so much effort into decoding that they do not have the mental resources left for constructing meaning and conveying it expressively.
Reading beyond the individual words on the page and comprehending meaning requires fluency - an established reading pace of approximately 90 words per minute means pupils will be able to comprehend as they read because there is less cognitive load. By reading and re-reading a book, pupils increase their familiarity with it. Increased familiarity increases confidence, accuracy, speed and fluency. Spending more time with a book also allows children to experience prosody (expressive reading) - modelled by an adult, taught by their teacher and practised themselves in their own reading books. Prosody is a vehicle for reading comprehension - combines accuracy, automaticity and reading with expression. This allows children to feel that they understand each book and read it with feeling. When children read like an expert reading, they are laying down the skills that will help them to fully engage with and enjoy the book.
We are taking a weekly one book approach to focused, supported home reading for comprehension and encourage you to fully engage with this. It does not in any way hinder children's exposure to and experience of other books. Visits to the library and 'free' reading is also extremely important for healthy, growing 'book worms' and these are highly recommended activities. What we ask is that you support us as we teach your child to read and comprehend, by reading, re-reading, discussing, exploring, ensuring accuracy and bringing the text to life with expression, pace and careful pronunciation. By mirroring good reading practice between home and school, the positive affect and impact is magnified.
Our Home-Reading Timetable
MONDAY One reading scheme book is given by the teacher to read at home this week. It needs to be brought into school each day too so that we can hear the children read it as well. |
MONDAY TO THURSDAY EVENINGS AT HOME The book is read at home. It must be read more than once and the questions included on the inside of the book cover are used to support and evaluate the children's comprehension and engagement with what they have been reading. Some pupils will be asked to complete written responses to these comprehension tasks each week. |
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MONDAY TO THURSDAY IN SCHOOL We will hear reading too. |
FRIDAY The reading scheme book is returned and 'weekend readers' are selected by the children. |
Reading Vipers - How to improve key reading skills
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Vipers is a range of reading prompts based on the 2016 reading content domains found in the National CurriculumTest Framework documents which can be found online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keystage-2-english-reading-test-framework KS2 - How to improve key reading skills |