Reading is a high priority at Forestdale. We ensure that the children are exposed to a range of high quality, age appropriate texts to embed a love of reading and develop a reading culture. We want all children to leave Forestdale being able to read fluently with understanding but also with a passion for reading. 

All our curriculum starts in our Foundation Stage click on the link below to see how we teach reading in EYFS

How we teach reading in KS1

Children in KS1 have daily practise reading lessons in small groups with an adult. These lessons have a range of books and texts that are linked and match to the children’s levels and understanding. Within these lessons, the children are able to have a range of activities including reading to and with an adult, independent comprehension activities and other activities to deepen children’s reading skills.

We also encourage of love of reading within these lessons by enabling the children to have their own independent time to read or share books with other children. The practise reading lessons involve small groups whereby the teacher models decoding strategies that build on fluency and also questioning to develop comprehension skills. Children also have the opportunity to build on their phonic skills.

How we teach reading in KS2 

In KS2 children are taught reading as a class, and we follow a daily reading process (see below). The books and texts chosen are there to deepen and challenge children’s fluency, comprehension and vocabulary skills. Teachers model how to read and also ask and answer questions; the children can then build on these skills independently and in groups. When questioning, teachers look carefully at the different types of questions and model how to answer these effectively. These questions involve fact retrieval, inference, summarising, authorial language and more. Our aim of whole class reading is to prepare children for the end of KS2 but also widening their reading adventure.

Throughout school, texts and books are chosen for specific year groups (see book list for the year below) that are stimulating and include a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. These reading lessons also feed into all areas of the curriculum and skills learnt are used in these lessons. One important aspect of this reading, by having a broad range of books and texts, is to show how different authors write and for the children be able to use these ideas in their own writing.

The love of reading.

With the importance of reading, we at Forestdale encourage reading for pleasure as much as possible. We have books and texts that are linked to our curriculum subject whether this be in the library or classroom that can enhance the children’s learning and knowledge with their chosen topic in class.

With a fantastic library, we encourage children to borrow books to enjoy with their families at home. This year we are starting  a rota of family reads to encourage families to come and use the library on a weekly basis. Our library has an extensive source of books from poetry to non-fiction. Our English Lead is on hand to help children to pick books they will enjoy and to advise children. Forestdale also promote independent reading as much as possible.

We also hold competitions throughout the year including activities on world book day and we try to get guest authors to speak to the children. 

At Forestdale, we also have a class buddy reading project. This is where each class is paired with a different year group and they read to each other weekly. At the moment, we have year one and year five paired together and year 3 and year 4. We also encourage the older children to read to our foundation stage children.

Each class is read to by the teacher daily at the end of the day. This is an important part of our school day as it not only models to the children how to read but they get to enjoy being read to. A range of authors are used throughout the school including magazines and news articles - see document below.

We extend our children's love of reading by taking part in Virtual Author visits based around a variety of subject matter and interest level.