Hurdsfield Primary School loves Reading

'Only our best (reading) will do!'

Reading Intent at Hurdsfield

Our Reading curriculum is designed to ensure all children know that reading is an open door to all other learning opportunities. They understand that reading frequently makes them a good reader, and being a good reader expands their world. Our children will embrace their own individual reading journey and will celebrate their reading milestones as they develop new strategies, learn new words, explore different genres, discover unknown authors, experience unfamiliar settings and unpick hidden meanings. By continually reflecting on their own reading journey, our children will not only be able to read, but most importantly, will want to read.

We do this through:

• Developing children’s competence in both dimensions of reading: word reading and comprehension.
• Prioritising reading for our early and developing readers; giving them the knowledge and skills to decode, learn and recognise a growing bank of words.
• Ensuring Quality First Teaching, where every child is treated as an individual, and additional support is put in place to make sure all children can ‘keep up’.
• Fostering an appreciation and love of reading for all of our children.
• Developing curious learners who confidently participate in dialogue by questioning, relating to, expressing views and engaging in discussions around a range of quality, engaging texts.
• Placing books, texts and images at the heart of daily school life.    
• Ensuring all of our children transition to high school as enthusiastic, fluent and confident readers.

• CORE LEARNING VALUES: curiosity, reflection, encouragement and challenge

Reading at Hurdsfield - a brief summary:

At Hurdsfield, we teach early reading in the following ways:

• Playing with the English Language: Our youngest children are encouraged to have fun and 'play' with the English language.  From rhyming words to role play, the emphasis is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills.
• Teaching our children to read words: Every child in Reception and Year 1 have daily, highly structured phonics sessions followed by guided reading sessions.  Each child is provided with decodable readers for use at home which can be read independently and link with the structured sessions the children enjoy daily in class.
• Teaching our children to understand the words they read: All children across the school have access to daily 'Word Aware' sessions which are based on developing children's understanding of vocabulary in all areas of the curriculum. Word Aware uses spoken language to explicitly teach word meaning. By enriching the language experience of all our children, we are closing the vocabulary gap while widening access to our engaging curriculum.   
• Reading for understanding: Each phonics session is followed by a guided reading session led by a member of our staff.  For continuity, the children have the same teacher for their phonics and reading session.  We have an early reading coach/teacher who supports all staff in the delivery of each session; ensuring consistency in quality of resources, delivery and high expectations for all children.  Our staff received high quality and ongoing CPD to support them in the delivery of these sessions.
• Reading for a purpose: Each curriculum enquiry uses a book hook which runs throughout the length of the enquiry.  Wider learning is based on this book which is widely discussed using 'Reading Vipers' to aid their comprehension of the texts they are reading.

V = Vocabulary

Ensuring our children understand the meaning of the words they mean in context supplemented by daily word aware sessions.

I = Inference

Being able to infer actions, thoughts and feelings using their understanding of the text and their wider experiences.

P = Prediction

Using evidence from what they have read and what they understand to predict what will happen next and how this will affect the plot of the narrative.

E = Explain

Use evidence to explain their answers to specific questions

R = Retrieve

Find information from a text quickly to support wider learning.

S = Sequence (KS1) and Summarise (KS2)

Accurately pick out the main events and succinctly summarise these for a wider audience.  

Our Reading Spine

At Hurdsfield Primary School, we know that reading is an open door to all other learning opportunities. Our children know that reading frequently makes them a good reader, and being a good reader expands their world. Fundamentally, we want our School to be a place where children are read to, enjoy, discuss and work with high quality books.

Our 'Reading Spine' is one element of the approach we take to foster a love for reading in our children. The spine is a core of books that create a living library inside our children's minds.  It is a store of classics and essential reads that help children engage at a deeper level and enter the world of the story.  We have produced our very own 'Reading Spine' for every year group so that children have access to these high quality texts.

Because we know that children bring their existing knowledge to what they are reading, our Reading Spine books are carefully linked to our Enquiry Questions. Our VIPERS text extracts are also selected to complement our Reading Spine Books. By doing so, we are helping our children to connect their knowledge in a meaningful way. Ultimately, while our children are continuing to enjoy a range of books throughout their school journey, the are also learning to become metacognitive readers.

We plan to use the books in every year group over the School Year.  From your child joining Hurdsfield Primary School in Reception, to leaving in Year 6, they will have been immersed into 45 of the most fantastic books available to children!

How It Works

Each year group has a set of (approximately) 6 texts that make up our reading spine.  The composition of the books/texts chosen for the spine underpins (where possible) the themes within our enquiry topics.

The text extracts used for VIPERS sessions link with the whole class reading spine book and subjects within the enquiry and will cover the following genres:

• Fiction
• Non-fiction
• Poetry

Our 'Reading Spine' is one element of the approach we take to foster a love for reading in our children. The spine is a core of books that create a living library inside our children's minds.  It is a store of classics and essential reads that help children engage at a deeper level and enter the world of the story.  We have produced our very own 'Reading Spine' for every year group so that children have access to these high quality texts.

Early Reading and Phonics at Hurdsfield

Please see more details on our Early Reading & Phonics page here